Hi, everyone!!!

Well... I made my 3rd and 4th cakes this week for some coworkers' birthdays today... They turned out pretty good, but both of them caved a little bit in the middle. Is there a way to prevent?

About the cakes... I made two 9x13 cakes (Betty Crocker Super Moist). I had the one cake, put the buttercream dam around the edge, put instant pudding inside the dam, and put the 2nd cake on top. I had a few cracking issues with the cakes (TOO moist?). In the middles (OK...it was where the middle cracks were...so if anyone knows how to prevent cracks or WHY it cracks, that would be great!), the cakes caved in slightly. Nothing too extreme and you could only tell when you looked at it from the side (verses "birdseye view)... I went to bed last night and had a nightmare that I was going to wake up to a completely caved in cake - I ended up running to the refrigerator as soon as I woke up this morning!

Thank you for any help you can give!! I'm learning on the fly here! LOL

Make sure your cakes are level before filling or frosting, then it shouldn't cave. I bake , level, then freeze (for larger cakes) so that it's easy to move them without them cracking. Also make sure your dam is SUPER thick butter cream so that way there is no bulging and pipe your filling into the center to make sure it's even. I've also gotten in the habit of putting a circle of my thick butter cream into the center of the cake, just to make sure it doesn't sink at all. I think that all sounds like a hodgepodge of advice, but hopefully it can help you out!

Thanks! I needed this advice too!