I have been noticing a lot of people talk about 'filling' a cake lately. I haven't heard of this term before, but it sounds like a good idea!

Some questions:
1) Can I use one cake split in two, or must I have two cakes? I only have one cake tin so far! It's 6", and quite tall. If this is OK, are there any tricks to cutting the cake in two? The one I have in mind is quite a dense mud-cake.
2) If I wanted to use Dulce de leche, do I just smear it all over, or must I create an 'edging' of some sort? How much would I use, one can?
3) What other things do people 'fill' cakes with? Cream? Jam?

Thank you!

Yes..you can use one cake cut in half. I usually use two layers and add my filling between those layers. I do make a 'dam' to hold my filling...usually out of stiffened bc.

I do both, Cut my cakes in half, And use two cakes. Its all down to personal preference

I cant answer the Dulce de leche Question, Ive only ever used it once, along with buttercream, and i only used a small amount.

I fill most of my cakes with either, Chocolate fudge frosting, Chocolate buttercream, Or vanilla buttercream With jam Once again, its down to personal choice , I never bother with building a dam, Some people do, personal choice again

Have a play and practise, See what you like best

Oh, and for cutting your cakes in half, You can do it by eye, I try to . . but it usually ends up wonky lol

I also use my cake tin as a guide, I place a couple of cake boards inside the tin, to lift my cake up to the height i want, And then place my cake back inside the tin on top of the boards, and use the edge of the tin as a guide

thanks ladies!! I'd never heard of a dam mamawrobin, but had a quick google and found that it means piping a bit of a sausage around the outside before filling in the middle - good idea!

Cath - what a brilliant idea with the cake tin!! Very clever, I'll try and do something similar.

Can't wait to try it!!

So I did it tonight... didn't quite go as smoothly as planned! I cut the cake while still frozen, was that the right thing to do....? And I did the 'dam', that went well. Then I spread the caramel inside the dam. Wasn't sure how much to put, suspect I might have used too much.

Then I placed the top half of the cakeon top, should I have squished it down? I did it pretty gently. Then covered in buttercream. The top half kept sliding to one side... grrr... I wonder if I cut it crooked? I tried to find something to try your trick Cath, but couldn't find a single suitable thing. So I just did my best to keep it even.

And I kept trying to make the icing smooth on the sides of the cake, but some of the caramel oozed out and made streaks. I think I 'played' with it too much and maybe it all got too warm, as the more I tried to fix it, the more it seemed to slip to one side and ooze. In the end I just put it in the fridge, hoping it would help. And that's where it is right now! I plan to get it out when it's firmed up, and try the viva paper towel trick on it.

Despite things not going 100% to plan, I'm LOVING this new hobby! It feels like I'm creating art, simple as my cakes may be at this stage

Good for you for giving it a shot, zespri!

Sounds like you could lighten up a little on the slippery filling next time. Your description of a "sausage" acting as a dam is spot on!

After you filled the cakes and did a crumb coat (a thin layer of buttercream that WILL have cake crumbs in it, just to seal them in before your final icing layer) the cakes are stacked and then left to settle.

You can hasten the settling by placing something with a little bit of weight to it on top of the cakes. Some people have used a wrapped up or clean ceramic floor tile placed on the cake. Others have used the cake tin, filled with dry beans for the weight.

You may see your filling bulge in the middle, around the cake. After the cake has rested a few hours, you can scrape that off and apply your final coat of icing. You will end up with smooth sides because you've already let the settling/bulging processs occur, instead of having that happen to you after the cake is "all dressed."

With dulce de leche you have to let the cake sit for a while. You want to do that anyway in order to prevent the dreaded bulge (I push down on it as soon as I add the top layer and let it sit for about 4 hours - never had a problem doing it like that). I use it quite often so I can tell you his....if your BC dam is thick you only want to fill the cake with dulce de leche about 3/4. You want the dam to rise above it slightly. Does that make sense? Because once you add the 2nd layer it will create a perfect barrier and you'll have zero leakage. I only make my dam and filling level if I use BC or whipped ganache -basically a more sturdy filling.

Also, I have a leveler that I stole from my hubby's tool box . I use that to make sure that all my layers are level.

Good luck!

Chasey & HPChick33: as I was reading your posts I was going "ahhh....ohhhh....ah-haaa!!" Penny's were dropping all over the place!!!

I came out this morning and scraped all the buttercream off and started again. Left the filling inside, as it had settled..... .just as you said! I have no idea how much I lost last night though.

I added another cup of icing sugar to the buttercream because as I was laying in bed last night wondering why it didn't crust, I wondered if I'd missed out some sugar. So I did that, re-whipped it, and put it on again. Still didn't crust! (I'm gonna start a thread asking about that one.....hehe). But it looked fine, so I went ahead and finished it. It looks OK. Not as amazing as it looked in my head, but it was the first time I'd made a caramel mud cake, first time I'd cut a cake in half (is that what they call torting?), first time I'd filled, piped with chocolate, and made a squiggly chocolate wrap. So for all those 'first times', it looks pretty good! ]

Man, I can't wait to do it again, next time it's going to be a masterpiece with all I learned!

Thanks again ladies, you're wonderful!