Everytime I make a cake, the same thing happens. I bake it, fill it, stack it, but when it comes to icing it, this is were I loose it. I do the crumb coat and let it crust and do the viva towel method. Then 5 minutes later I ice it and do the viva method again. When it's decent enough I look at the cake and there is the midline forming a bump. Right were the cake is filled. Everytime I do a cake I put less and less filling but the same thing happens to all my cakes. Can somebody please help?

It's likely that your cakes are not level, or you haven't let them rest long enough for applying the final coat of frosting. Here is my tutorial:

www.cakeboss.com/preventbulging.aspx

Thank you so much for the instructions, i'll do that today. I'll let you know how it went, thanks again.

I thought you were talking about the mid-line bump on a person!

I'd say your cakes need to settle a bit longer before you do your final coat. I also think maybe the icing you're using for the dam is not thick enough to not squish out much.

I used to do the same as a previous poster and fill in between the layers with a piping bag but ended up having a larger bump after the cakes settled.

I typically fill and stack my cakes a full day before I plan on putting on the final coat of icing with or without the crumb coat. This way the layers can settle together and the filling can squish away however it wants.

"How to get rid of the midline Bump" I thought I would find advice about getting rid of 'MY BUMP" in my mid-section, but no! It's all about cake.....GEEEZ!

Yeah, I have figured out that the amount of filling you put in does NOT matter!!!

One thing that has REALLY helped is to make sure that your icing "dam" as people call it (the ring of icing that you put on the outside edge of your filling) is of a thicker consistency. When I am making icing, I won't put all of my liquid in at once just so that I can take some out for my dam. When it is thick, it will stay in place better, and will keep the filling from making it's way to the edge.

Like the other posters said, make sure your layers are level, after you do the filling, do the crumb coat, whatever smoothing method you do, and the let it SIT. I usually take two days to do a cake. One day to bake, fill, and do the crumb coat, and the other day to decorate. The cake needs that time inbetween to settle, and then the next day before you decorate, you can go back and smooth any bulges that have formed (although I have noticed that by using the thick icing for the dam, I rarely have any bulging at all.)

And as for getting rid of the midline bump...if anyone can tell me how to get rid of my back side bump....*sigh*...it just won't go away! hehehe