I don't know what I am doing wrong. After I fill and torte my cakes the dams start to bulge out of my cakes. I've tried a bigger dam, a smaller dam, a dam so thick I could pick it up and move it, and I thought maybe the problem was that the dam was too big and there wasn't a proportionate amount of filling. So I mixed up a thick filling and filled it right up to the edge of the dam. What am I doing wrong? Also, I keep using the WASC recipe hoping that I will eventually fall in love with it. But it seems too dense and moist to me, almost like a brownie.
Is my cake just so darn heavy that it's squishing my darn dam? So the other question is why are my cakes sinking in the middle after being torted and filled? This was what made me start using more and thicker filling, but it didn't seem to help.
I am in the foothills of Colorado, so it is high altitude, but could this be affecting my cakes this much? Until now I've only used boxed cakes according to the directions and my family always enjoyed them with no issues, but I also wasn't using so much heavy buttercream and decoration before. UGh!!! I'm about to start baking dry cakes on purpose just so that I know they will be sturdy!

I will take any suggestions, no matter how obvious they seem to you, maybe I'm missing something because it seems TOO obvious.

Thanks a bunch!

I find that after filling the cake (and applying a very thin crumbcoat), if I put it in the refrigerator for at least an hour, I have no problem with bulges. I think it really helps to just let it set for a while before handling it too much. Anyway, that's what works best for me.

Good luck!

Question? When you do your dam to you do it all the way to the edge of the cake? Because it sounds like you are to close to the edge and you pressure of the other cake is pressing your dam out. Does that make sense? Bring your dam in a few centimeters then fill then put cake on top press down a little, then I do my crumb coat in if the spaces between the cake is too far apart I fill it in a little using a number 12 tip or larger. Then after I crumb coat and I have all the spaces filled I go ahead and frost my cake. I hope that helps.

I agree with Karema, it sound like you are to close to the edge, I use a medium BC to make the dam. As for the sinking, I can't relate to the altitude, but I have had it happen it the cake wasn't cooked all the way in the middle, it seemed like it was about to burn on the edges so to be safe I took it out and it dropped in the middle.

If you are doing 4 layers of cake and 3 layers of filling, are you using less filling per layer? The filling should remain proportionate to the cake.

Example..... I make a 2-layer cake using two 2" layers of cake and I will use about 1/4" of filling. So if I tort these cakes and now have four 1" layers of cake, then I should use about 1/8" of filling between the layers. If I used the same amount of filling, it wouldn't be proportionate and have a higher tendancy to slide around.

I also agree with the above suggestions of moving the dam in just a bit.

Yeah, that makes perfect sense, because if i move the dam in, then even if it settles some it will still have room to go. Good call ladies, I bet that's my issue!