How Exactly Do You Fill A Cake??
Decorating By kiddoscakes Updated 25 May 2009 , 12:55am by sugarshack
I know it's a basic question and it should be easy to figure out but seriously I have never actually filled a cake, other than with some buttercream. Last night I decided to try with vanilla cream, I am very excited about trying this new way and being able to offer more options to my clients. My question is really, how do you get a nice thick layer of filling? Do you let the filling settle before you put on the second layer? Do you just "slop" the filling in? Really I need all the little tips I can get.
Thanks
Holly
Hi Holly, you make your normal buttercream and take a little bit of it and add more powdered sugar to make it a bit stiff. Once you done that, you should be able to take it and roll it in your hand without it sticking in your hand. Then take your piping bag with the couplers on (without any tips). Fill the bag with the stiffened bc and pipe a dam on the egde of the fisrt layer. Then you put inside the dam what ever the filling you are using. And don't put the filling up to the same hight as the dam. It should be filled just below the dam. Then you put the next layer of cake.
Learnt this from Sugarshack. 
Hope it make sence.
hmmm interesting tip about thickening up the buttercream. I've always just used my regular bc for the dam. Maybe i've just been lucky but i've not had any problems with it holding fillings in thus far.
hmmm interesting tip about thickening up the buttercream. I've always just used my regular bc for the dam. Maybe i've just been lucky but i've not had any problems with it holding fillings in thus far.
It probably depends on your filling. I would think something like whipped cream or jam would be fine with regular BC. But maybe something heavier like pudding would push regular BC right out of the way? I'm paranoid, so I always thicken my dam.
hmmm interesting tip about thickening up the buttercream. I've always just used my regular bc for the dam. Maybe i've just been lucky but i've not had any problems with it holding fillings in thus far.
I sure don't take the time to make stiffer icing either. Just use my regular icing for the dam, then fill with sleeved fillings (if I'm not using BC as the filling). I add the sleeved fillings to just below the top of the dam.
I've used pudding-thick fillings and haven't had a problem with it pushing the dam out.
We used to just use the regular buttercream like IndyDebi mentioned above. However, after trying SugarShack's thicker consistency, we think it provided more stability in terms of pushing out fillings. For some reason, the buttercream just didn't seem to want to stay where we put it. But, hey, we experiment and eat cake and experiment more (and eat cake more!) until we get to something we can be comfortable with.
Enjoy! Try! Eat cake!!!
Paul & Peter
I started that technique with fondant cakes since they have more weight on them and wanted to show the middle line and filling, and then decided I liked it for BC cakes too. I make the dam a bit stiffer for the fondant cakes and super stiff for topsy turvy cakes.
HTH
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