This was my first try for a tapered cake. top tier, lime/lemon. bottom tier lemon/lime. 8-10 and 6-8 taper...

All baked wonderfully. My lemon and lime fillings came out beautiful..

So, it tapered, stacked, filled, crumb coated, and let them sit overnight.
This morning, i frost with bc...
by around 3pm, both are falling apart!!!!! The bottom tier BC slid down the sides, and the top tier has a mega grand canyon crack on the side!!!

AHHH, the baby shower is tommorow. So Now it will be a 10" and 8" round cake!!! it is 9pm and i am rebaking both cakes, Got both 10" baked, waiting for them to cool, the two 8" are in the oven as we speak...

Hopefully I have enough buttercream to frost both cakes, anybody can chime in and let me know what i did wrong and how to fix it.


Good thing the baby shower is for me!! I am 35 weeks along : )

oh my goodness you poor thing! and to top it off you're mega-preggers!

I love the look of those tapered cakes but am so chicken to try it due to this exact issue! wonder if there is a trick. I'll be watching this post to find out!
happy pushing!

So sorry this happened to you!! And you had to make your own baby shower cake on top of it.

I have only made a tapered cake one time. It was a square one, and I covered it in fondant. It wasn't a pretty sight when I got through with it. I had to make little fondant balls to go all around the bottom to cover the wrinkles.

I have no suggestions as to what may have gone wrong. The only advice I have is to think "cake balls" for your original cake.

Hope you have a fun shower.

Ok, upon the cracked cake fully splitting i half, i see a bunch of things i did wrong;

1. i baked the cakes with heating cores in the center. when i stacked and tiered the cake, i think the weight of the tiers became too heavy because the center has the plug in it (the plugs were all very centered though, and those did stay stacked, lol) .
So, I guess it was more like me stacking 3 donuts on top of eachother, all going from in a V shape! no support in the center....

2. The cake was 3, 2" stacked high, which i tried to level off to 3, 1.5" high... i think when i leveled my cakes, the center cake was bigger than the lower base. so, when i put the filling between the middle and lower layer, the center layer was too heavy for the lower to support properly therefore, causing the cake to shift over...

If i would have not had a the heating cores and paid attention to leveling the cakes more evenly before stacking, i really dont think it would have been such a disaster!!!! any other input here.... I really dont want to do this mistake again!!!!

THanks to all who are posting and for your good wishes on my preggos, lol!!!

Have you tried to use a flower nail instead of a heating core? They don't displace any cake. Just spray them good and put in the bottom of your pan before you pour in the batter. Make sure it stays in the middle. When the cake is done the nail will pull out nice and clean.

you know i have never used a flower nail, just heating cores but i will definitly use one when i try to do a tapered cake again!!! I will not be defeated by the tapering!!!

Does the flow nail work as well as the heating core?? for 10" plus cakes, should i put a couple of flower nails in th cake batter or will one due fine??

This exact thing happened to me and for my own bridal shower cake. After it happened I discovered it works best to bake all 3 layers the same size and carve down. Also the slippy fillings are not recommended. Ganache or straight buttercream is recommended. I also will chill mine next time because I know heat was a culprit for mine. Good luck with your next one.

I agree about the "slippery fillings" It's not a good idea to use these types of fillings on tapered or carved cakes of any kind. Period. The filling that you used is probably created your problem.

Thanks to all for your input, yeah, the slippery filling I'm sure did not help!
1. NO heating cores on a tapered cake, flower nail better!!
2. Bake all cakes same size, then trim
3. NO slippery fillings!!!
4. Make your layers even!!!

It was all done wrong!!!

It's ok though, i am going to practice with smaller cakes until i master it!

Glad you all figured out the problems. I wish I could handle mistakes as well as you did. I would get so stressed out. But it's great how you made it into a learning experience and now shared it with us so that we can learn from the same mistakes. I can't wait to try one of these myself, but I am still waiting for an opportunity.

[quote="Adevag"] But it's great how you made it into a learning experience and now shared it with us so that we can learn from the same mistakes. [quote]

Agreed....you showed a great attitude in not letting this get the best of you!

My cake decorating instructor recommended using a more solid type cake (pound cake instead of a softer cake mix type) on a tapered or carved cake. They don't crack or fall apart so easily.

DianaJJ

Another thing about the flower nail.....it will work even if you forget to put it in before you put in the batter. I forgot, but sprayed it really well with Baker's Joy then squished it down to the bottom of the pan and it still came out perfectly