Any help is appreciated. I find that my cakes are not holding shape as they should. The tiers want to bow out slightly at the sides instead of holding straight on the sides. I feel that it is the denseness of the cake. When making a 3 or 4 tier cake, do you add anything the make the cake denser and sturdier without sacrificing the taste and texture of the cake. I usually bake using a (2) 2" deep cakes and torte and fill each one. After trimming off the tops and filling each layer is about 4" high. What do I need to do to get straight sides????

Use wooden dowels. Make an interior structure for each tier to rest on so it doesn't have to rest on itself. As you are building from the bottom tier upward cut dowels to the exact height of each tier (four dowels will work)then on your next tier place it on a board the same size (either cardboard or plastic) so that the second tier board rests on the dowels and not the cake. Repeat up the whole cake. The type of cake and filling wont matter this way because each tier is not resting on the one before it but plastic or cardboard is resting on wooden dowels.

Thelaw23,
I do use dowels. Depending on the size of the cake anywhere between 5 to 7. The cakes don't rest on each other at all, so it isn't the weight of the cake above it. That's why I thought it might be the denseness of the cakes. Any other ideas?

do you mean that your cake is bulging on the sides? if so, here is a link to an article on that

http://www.cakeboss.com/PreventBulging.aspx

HTH

That's a great link

Here's the link to a CC topic on this Hope it helps.

http://forum.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-33188-prevent.html+bulging

your filling may be too thin. are you using a damn of thick buttercream 1/2 inch from the edge first?

Thank you all for the help. After looking at the links, I'm thinking that I am using too much filling. I alway make a dam around the layer's outer edge, but I also like alot of filling. After looking at the links, I may be putting too much of the good stuff in. I really think this might be it!!! Thank you soo much for your help.. I can't wait to try less filling and see what happens. You guys are the best!

That's a great link! So glad to find it! I had a major disaster with bulging and then pretty much an explosion Sunday. I made my final cake for Course I and was so excited. I really put alot of work into this one, lol. Instead of using just a box mix and class BC I decided to try the WASC cake and the snow white BC (tried it the night before with the little 6" I made and it was delish). I waited to ice it the next day and I used strawberry filling (Smuckers simply fruit).....well it started bulging, but I decided to go ahead and take it to class like that because I was out of time. I really didn't think it would make it because it is a 40 minute drive and it was in the 90's! Well it didn't! The entire top slid off and the filling poured all done the bottom layer ! Wahhhh ! So much for a nice grand finale cake, lol!