Hellooo! I am looking to make a shopping bag cake for a friends birthday in june! I have never made this kind of cake before and would like to plan ahead. Anyway... i was trying to figure out a good approach.. Should I make a sheet cake, cut it into rectangles, and stack it to my desired height? How should I stack it? Anything In between besides frosting ex. dowels, boards(what kind?) anything??? How do I cover it in fondant and keep the whole thing from falling over?! THANKS SO MUCH! 
How many people are you feeding? Let's start there.
I would stack the sliced sheet cake. Someone on here, I think it was Leah, said to dowel and board for every 4 inches of height and I think that's excellent advice. Should work out just fine, good luck and post pics!!!
I did as you suggested with the sheetcake cut in rectangles. I had 4 layers, I doweled and boarded between the 2 and 3 then used a center dowel. I covered in choc. ganached and then used fondant panels on the sides of the cake. If you look in my picts. it is the Kohl's bag. If you have any questions you can pm me. HTH
I took a mini class in Michigan a few years ago and the instructor taught the class how to make one using a square cake (4" high). I've made a few in the past. Not sure of the servings you need, but her method was so easy because for me. I couldn't figure out how to get the fondant in one piece instead of having panels.
She made a rectangle template for the size and length of fondant (I will have to find notes and post measurements later today).
- Iced the cake.
- Roll fondant according to the template size.
- Put the cake in the middle of the fondant and pull the sides of the fondant so they meet in the middle. So, that would be the back of the cake.
- She then put the cake on the cake drum.
- Added skewers in the corners of the bag to help fondant stand
- Made tissue paper and added decorations.
Here are two pictures of a shopping bag I've done. The larger one I think was a 10" cake and that made me nervous because of the size.
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