In my manic busy cake making day y'day I replied to a customer requesting a topsy turvy cake that yes the base tier in rich fruit cake is fine. Since having a quieter moment I've just thought - how??! have I made a huge error or is it really possible to properly carve a fruit cake for a topsy turvy or should I tell her its really not possible? I've never carved fruit before for the obvious reasons. I'm not sure where my brain was y'day!

help advice/please anyone - has anyone done this?

While I have no experience with rich fruit cake, I have tried to carve cakes with "chunks" of fruit and nuts - didn't work very well. In fact, it didn't work at all LOL. You may have better luck if you can freeze the cake and then try to carve with a sharp blade. You could then fill/smooth with icing or ganache?

I make dark fruit cake, but I've never tried to carve it. I would think, however, if you're very careful and use a good serated knife you should be okay. Assume, you'll cover in marzipan and then fondant? If so, the marzipan can fill in the small gaps where some of the fruit pieces fall away. You may want to make sure that the fruit you use in the cake is cut quite small to avoid some of the "pits" you'll likely get. Good luck.

I think you can do this, but you'll have to be prepared to plug a lot of holes with marzipan! I would also suggest your cake be quite cold and I would use a straight blade, rather than a serrated one. I think the serrated might drag, pulling more fruit bits out.

I expect the biggest challenge will be building up the high side of the tier enough to give it a good slant. I would probably use royal icing to glue the built up edge together. You might actually need to bake extra fruit cake for the build, as the cake you carve away may crumble as fruit cake tends to do!

My biggest caution it to make sure you charge enough for this tier. Be careful not to absorb the cost of the servings that are carved away. The ingredients for a good fruit cake are just too expensive.
I look forward to hearing how this worked out for you! Good luck!

I think it can be done! Have you baked your cakes yet? In Cayman we mince/grind our soaked fruit, right before we bake it. I haven't carved my fruit cakes before but I've trimmed and leveled. The finer texture of the fruit makes it really easy to cut. Perhaps try doing that? Btw we don't marzipan our fruit cakes either, we just use royal icing, a hi ratio buttercream or fondant. Works great and no seeping! Hope that helps!

thank you thank you all so much for your advice. I do think if the fruit isn't too chunky that can ease the pain and a straight sharp knife will cause less dragging they are all good tips. I will let you know how it all goes next weekend when the process begins!!!