Hello!! I'm a newbie and have only done one practice cake and then the "real" one for my friend's bridal shower.. I think I am hooked and this site is addictive!!

When I level my cakes and then stack them for a tier, how do I make sure that you can't notice the two layers underneath the fondant? I used buttercream as the in between, haven't tried anything else yet.

Thank for your help!

Do you mean the layers are showing through the fondant? If that's the case, make sure you have a nice cushy buttercream layer all over the outside of your cake. Crumb coat first, then come back and put roughly 1/4" thick layer of buttercream everywhere before you put on your fondant. This will serve a few purposes. 1. - It acts like glue to hold the fondant in place and helps it keep from stretching. 2. - It hides any minor flaws in the shape of the cake, or the difference in layers. 3 - It helps with smoothing your fondant. Start from the top and smooth down. Some icing may smush out and that's okay.

Also, a random note kind of related to this, if you use a white buttercream and your fondant is thin, it may lighten the color of it some. So if you are using one main color, you may tint your buttercream to match for the most pop.

Hope that helps!

Yes, I meant it looks like they are uneven. Thanks for the tips! Very helpful, and I never thought about the coloring the buttercream!!

Have you used ganache at all?

Also make sure to let your layers settle so you can remove any bulge before putting the fondant on it.

I haven't worked with ganache yet. I want to try it some time, but seeing as how I'm trying to kick some baby weight off, I only make cakes when there's some type of event, and I never want to try something completely new when I haven't practiced! I'll get around to it at some point.

Something else I thought of, do you have pans with straight vertical sides? Sometimes if mine are slightly off or if I use my cheap pans I will take a tall serated knife, and cut the cake after it's stacked to make sure it's completely straight.

Just did my first ganache under fondant cake and it turned out wonderfully! Got all of my tips from CC!!