my granddaughter wants me to make her a pasiley topsy turvy cake and I have no idea about what she is talking about. So I need to know what kind of frosting is used to make this cake Thanks

you use the same frosting as you would on any other cake. Most people use fondant too as it makes it easier to handle the cakes, but it's not necessary.

Tokenpiggy, a Topsy Turvy cake (also called a Mad Hatter or Whimsy cake) is a cake that appears to be falling over because of the sharp angles of the cake tiers. It's just an optical illusion that is created by stacking the cake specifically. There's a great how-to lesson on CC showing you how.

http://www.cakecentral.com/article1-Instructions-For-Building-A-Whimsical-Tilted-Cake.html


You can use buttercream or fondant to ice the cake, whichever you'd prefer.

It is usually decorated pretty loudly & colourfully. I guess your granddaughter wants you to add a paisley design to hers, which would be cute!

Here is one I've done, just to show you the angled tiers. (It's not hard!) I also found this diagram online that shows you the technique to stacking the tiers that way....

Thank you all for the replys I really appreciate it. You were all most helpful Thanks again

Antonia74: Your skectch makes it look so simple. If I am looink at it correctly, did you stack the tiers as normal and then place an angled piece at one side to give it the topsy turvy look? If so, this is the most simplist skectch I seen yet.

I think I could even do one of these.

Thanks for the skectch

Not my sketch, I found it online....but yes, it's exactly right.

You simply make 3 layer cakes, carving the sides down narrower and their tops on a bit of a slanted angle. Then you stack them normally with one tier slanting left, the next tier slanting right, the top tier slanting left.

For a bit of extra support, you can even sharpen a wooden dowel and drive it right down the middle of the cake into the drum board at the base. That's great when you have to transport it.

It's really MUCH easier than it looks!

Have you done a topsy turvey where the sections are wider at the top than the bottom? If so, wouldn't the fondant not lay smoothly when tapering down to a more narrow base? Wouldn't it pucker?

I want to try one but in my mind, I can't see how it would stay smooth when narrowing down from top to bottom...

It can be fun if you use fondant, it took me 2 go's at covering my first Topsy Turvy cake but everyone loved it.
Here's a pic

Antonia74,
Which sizes of cake pans did you use to achieve you 1 049.jpg cake? I just tried practicing something like this. My intent is to do a cake next week using buttercream and NOT a fondant overlay to ice three tiers, 6-7-8 8-9-10 10-11-12. As practice, I iced the 6-7-8, having carved the sides in a bit first and top and then placed a 4" round out top and carved out a hole and dowel to see how well the sides held up. When I put the 4" pan in and pushed down a bit to represent the weight of the cake, the sides cracked. ( I used the 4" because I did not want to waste a bunch of cake and icing on practice and was 4" less in diameter than the 8" layer on top which would represent the 4" difference between my top and middle tier next week.)
Do I need to use different sized cakes?
Different cake recipe?
Not carve the sides in at all?
I have not baked the cakes yet, so if you offer a suggestion of what sizes to bake, I will go with that.
What advice can you offer?
Thanks!

I used 5"/8"/11" cake tiers for that one.