I am fairly new to cake decorating. I buy the Wilton brand cake boards..I usually make an 8 inch cake so I buy the 8 inch cake boards. As we all know, when covering a cake with fondant the board has the to be the same size as the cake...but for some reason my cake board is always slightly bigger which is quite annoying when doing simple borders like a ribbon...the cake board sticks out. Has anyone experienced this problem; is this normal? If so, what do you do? Is Wilton not making their cake boards true to size and should I go with another brand? Is my cake shrinking when baking (I should add that my 8 inch pans are by Wilton too)? Any advice would be great.

I had no idea the board is supposed to be the same size as the cake. I just use a pizza cutter and go around the cake to cut the excess fondant off. I never use pre-size boards. I use foam core (I think it's used for science fair displays), it's sturdier than the cardboards and I can cut it to fit any size I need. I think Wilton purposely makes the boards slightly larger so that you can put a border around the cake without it hanging off the board. As I am a newbie here too, someone may have a better insight!

I cut my own boards out of foamcore. I trace around the cake pan and then cut the board out with a box cutter. That always makes it just the right size to hold the cake, thin layer of buttercream, and then I wrap the fondant under the bottom of the board. You can do them borderless if you want to, because there's no bottom edge or board edge to hide. It helps to set the cake on something smaller in diameter than the cake board (for example when doing an 8" cake I will put it on top of an upside-down 6" pan so that the fondant will hang straight down and I can get my hands under the edge of the cake board).

I've never worked with foam core. Where can I get that?

Foam core comes from Michaels or Hobby Lobby. It's like posterboard only thicker and greaseproof. It's possible to buy cake boards made from it that are already cut, and then you don't have to wrap it in plastic wrap or foil, but I always wrap the ones from the craft store since they don't come sealed in a package. I bought a good box cutter from Home Depot and I've been using it for about 6 years now. It doesn't work too well to cut foamcore with scissors.

I usually use masonite, but either way if the cake is slightly smaller than the board, you just frost the cake flush with the board, so it's all even, and then I smooth my fondant right down over the edge of the board so that you cannot see it.

Mines always come off bigger I actually use the board as a guide for the frosting.