I have a cake I need to do and I'm deciding what is the best way to cover a beer mug cake. It's going to be 7-8 layers 8inch cake. It's probably going to be about 10 inches high so I'm worried about how I should cover it in fondant. Should I drape it like the usual way or wrap it around. I'm just worried the fondant would slide down if I did the wrap around method. Also, if I used Swiss Merigue buttercream underneath the fondant would it hold? I know if its in room temperature for a long period of time then it will soften so I'm worried about the fondant slipping. I'd like to do ganache but I'm worried because I've never used ganache before. Also, i plan on putting a board after the third layer supported with bubble straws. Should I also add another after the 6th layer or will that be enough?

I wanted to do the floating beer effect so I was going to put the long dowel in the center and I guess that would add to the support.

Can anyone please give me instructions or help me?!? Thanks!

I'd highly recommend trying the ganache -- especially the first time you are doing a double barrel cake. It makes the cake firmer and more stable, and will be easier for you to work with when you apply the fondant. You need to make sure you have good internal support, as you are stacking two tiers of the same diameter and ganaching to make it look like one cake.

There are a couple of good tutorials for these types of cakes. First, jessicakes has a good one for covering a tall cake like a regular cake (over the top).
http://jessicakesblog.blogspot.com/2012/09/tricks-to-covering-tall-cake-in-fondant.html
This approach can be challenging due to the weight of the fondant.

The other approach is to wrap fondant around the cake. Here's a tutorial for that. I think it is easier to do it this way because the weight of the fondant causes it to rip easily. You can also do the top as a single disk put on top if that is easier, but it leaves you more seams to join. However if you're doing a beer mug, you may be able to hide that easily. You can hide the seam if you wrap it with the handle for the beer mug.
http://partycakescanberra.wordpress.com/2012/07/17/tutorial-how-to-make-a-double-barrel-cake/

Here's another tutorial that shows a good way to do the internal structure for your cake. I used a structure like this in my diet coke cake (see my photos) which was 6" diameter but almost 11" tall!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/deliciously_decadent/3798619197/in/photostream

Here are cake central discussions on the topic too.
http://cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-656811.html
http://cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-723840.html

Good luck!

Thank you so much for your reply and for all the tips! After all the worrying, I ended up not covering it in fondant. I liked the way it looked with just the ganache. It's the first time I've worked with it and I absolutely love it! It's so much easier to work with and after struggling with buttercream to achieve a smooth finish I think this will be my first choice. You can see the picture on the cake on my gallery. I'm so happy it came out fine and everyone loved it!

I still want to be able to do a double barrel cake with fondant so I think I will use a dummy cake and practice so I don't panic in case I need to do one for later! Lol

Thanks again

I did a beer mug cake but out of crusting buttercream...and I live in the Texas heat.....I doweled it