Okay, please help me prevent a leaning purse cake. I have also had this issue with the stand up house pan, which always tends to lean for me. I baked a 10" round, leveled it, cut it in half, and stood it up so that the flat ends were on the board and the curved edges were on top. Even though the flat edges are level, the cake is leaning backward instead of standing up straight. I tried to "glue" it to the bottom of the board as I iced it, but it was already leaning before I was finished. I was planning to cover this with fondant--any tips to prevent this in the future? It is not looking very Chanel--more of a consignment type handbag at this point!

You could make your cake board base a couple of layers thick, then sharpen a dowel(or two, for bothe layers) and put it through the whole cake and the layers of boards. It really is not hard to tap it through. I use a small meat tenderizer as a hammer. Do it before you put the fondant on so you won't damage the finish.

Are your cakes fresh or frozen? They seem to have more body if frozen!

I am wondering if your cake is too soft of a cake to stand up. You could also put dowels or lollipop sticks in the middle to hold it up too

If it is too fresh sometimes the dowels break thru.

Instead of standing cakes on end try laying them flat and stacking and then carving the cake

Thanks so much to all who responded! I haven't tried freezing cakes before, so that definitely could have been part of the problem. Also, (and maybe my weakness in physics is radiating an embarrassing glare right now) I don't understand why putting the dowel in makes the cake stand up right. It seems like it would just create a hole, and the rest of the cake would continue to fall wherever it was leaning, or maybe the dowel would encourage the cake to split.

I'll give it a try, though, and also try the freezing bit. I probably should have gone more toward a pound cake type cake for this design, too. Thanks!

I agree w/you. A pound cake would be easier to work with and freezing would definitely give you an advantage. Dowel I have had good and bad luck. What you mentioned about splitting has happened and vice versa. It depends on the density of the cake and the thickness to seems to make a difference. Let me know if you find a tried and true method. Good Luck!

I made a little house using two square cakes stuck together with buttercream standing on end. I stuck 4 dowels into them horizontally and since I used a styrofoam board I stuck one dowel into each cake half straight thru the board.