I baked square cakes, I am thinking of cutting long pieces and stacking them on top of each other (gradually cutting smaller when nearing top) then carving out the diagonal shape. I am thinking when I cover this with fondant, there will be folds because of the shape, so maybe I should cut them off and put something there to cover up (like a thick seam or something).

Also, being that it will be sorta tall, would you put dowels in half way up? It won't be huge, I plan to make it to feed 25. Then again, more often the cakes wind up larger rather than smaller...

Thanks so much for your help, I will be assembling this cake tonight for delivery tomorrow.

Hi there Cakelady:
I would do exactly as you are saying. If your cake is going to be more than 4" high I would advise a board to divide for ease of cutting. But basically stacking and carving are the way to go. And yes you might want to put some dowels straight down the cake and into the board...just in case.

I agree. Bake one cake 10"x10" and one cake 9"x9", both 1 1/2" high. Cut both in the middle and stack. With filling you get one cake 5"x10", 4" high and one cake 4 1/5" x 9", 4" high. These are your tiers and should you give enough servings.

Set both tiers on each other and carve - without filling or stacking properly, only to get the rough form. You can first mark the carving lines and carve each "tier" separately and only for the "fine cut" stack it. After carving, stack it properly with support.

As for covering: Work as you would sew the purse, with few modifications. Cover the entire cake, but don't try to make it smooth. Make 4 folds on the edges, running from top to bottom. Press the fondant together, cut the excess and make the cut edge smooth. Imitate the sewing on top- and underside of the seam. (Tracing wheel works best).

Look at my schema to see it better.

thank you so much, all this info was so helpful! one more question...i've never put dowels through a whole cake. the ones i have aren't pointy and i assume it would have to be to go through the cake board. any easy way to sharpen? or i can use skewers i have but they're so thin that i wonder if they would do anything...

thanks again

ps. majka_ze - thanks also for explaining how to "sew the purse"...i can barely sew a button!! lol

If you have the wilton wooden dowels, an electric pencil sharpener works perfectly to sharpen the ends....i guess any wooden dowel would work that way as long as it fits into the whole of the sharpener, but i know that the wilton ones work.

It all depends if you need the support for the second tier and division in between or want this division for easier serving later - than, you need dowels in the bottom part with the same height as the cake (4"), on top of this the second "tier" on cake board with same dimensions as the bottom of this tier, or perhaps smaller. Than, you would cover the whole "2 tier cake" with fondant. In this case, I would cut an opening in the exact middle of the cake board, bigger than the dowel, and drive one long dowel through the whole cake. This means 4 dowels for the bottom "tier" and the one center dowel - this could be the skewer, because it is needed only as security. Sharp with pencil sharpener, as mentioned before, if needed.

But the pyramid shape is quite stable and if you have a firm cake, you could make it without this support.

Me personally, I would stack it without the support and drive two skewers through the whole cake - more for security when moving and transporting the cake than anything else.

I have seen such cake without any support at all - but I wouldn't risk it.

In any case, I would give instruction how to cut this cake - meaning disassemble the cake / cut the height in half and than cut the servings. Else the customer could cut much bigger / meaning less servings because they won't know how to do it.

Good luck to you and don't forget to leave the photo!

I would definitely put at least two dowels through the cake. Along with a cake board every couple of layers.

Trust me, I had a cake fall over and smash into the floor once - because I didn't support it properly. It was really tall like that and let's just say it was a HUGE mess.

Thank heavens I learned.

thanks so much for your help. i did wind up putting dowels and board, and one skewer through the whole thing.

majka_ze - i tried to do what you suggested with the "seams" but when i covered the cake i just couldn't make it work...as you can see i improvised but would have preferred to do it your way. oh well

i just posted the pics, you should be able to see.

thanks again,
cakelady11215

Cakelady - your purse turned out SO cute! Great job on it!!

omg the purse came out darling!!! you did a terrific job!!!