I have the top 6" tier of a cake torted and filled, and last night when I was putting it away, the top three layers (four layers of cake, three filling) slid off center from the bottom layer. I righted it, but I am wondering if this is just a disaster waiting to happen.

. I did a thin layer of 60 short/40 butter American buttercream and a dam, with raspberry (combo of homemade and Dawn sleeve) filling. Chocolate cake (WASC)

. the cake will be buttercream, covered in the big swirl rosettes.

. it will be chilled firm for delivery, but will be outside in 75-80 degree shade for an outside reception.

Will I be able to save it? or Would it be best to unstack that layer, scrape and refill it? (i have enough extra to do that).

Did you do a dam around the edge before filling the cake? Generally we make a buttercream dam out of very stiff buttercream before using any filling, especially a slippery one.

If you feel you could deconstruct it without running the cake it may be worth it. Otherwise just keep it really chilled.

Putting a layer of buttercream on before the raspberry filling will keep that filling from seeping/soaking into your cake. Sometimes I do it...sometimes I don't. But it also makes for a slippery cake. Whenever I do any kind of fruit or pudding filling, my center filling is buttercream to create the cement to hold all the layers together. I find 3 layers of a fruit or gooey filling is not stable....this is strictly my opinion and the way I do it.

I totally agree with the other posters on this issue. I also think that deconstructing your cake is a recipe for disaster............ask me how I know. I think keeping it chilled is the only way to go, or rebaking and assembling using the stiff dam ideas as suggested by sillywabbitz.

I really like ddaigle's idea on staggering the buttercream/pudding/fruit fillings.

I'm going to try that next time my cake has a pudding filling.

i did use a dam, always do. but i must have overfilled the fruit and it seeped out. Then once it slid, it compromised that cement glue holding it together.

The cake is just crumb coated, so I'm pretty sure that I can fix it while very chilled without destroying it. (but Kats has me a bit scared. What happened?) Even if I have to shave off the raspberry caked area, i have enough height on this tier. I'd probably flip it over on it's top then take the layer off, scrape it, then dam and refill. Then back to get chilled up.

My biggest fear is that when they go to cut it, the top will slide off the bottom layer and they'll loose all of it.



This is probably the last time i'll do three fruit filling layers. I've done the buttercream in the center layer before, but I don't know why I decided to switch it up this time. Won't do this again!

Since it's only crumb coated I'd deconstruct it. I've done it several times with no problems. It's messy, though, but worth the peace of mind! I had a shifting cream cheese filling that I fought for a day before taking it apart, scraping it off, new dam, thicker icing, restocked... Perfect!

I made a baby shower cake, and the bottom tier was filled with strawberry filling. When I was assembling the cake, I mistakenly filled the tier with buttercream instead of the strawberry, so I took it apart and made a stiff dam, added the strawberry filling and proceeded to crumb coat, ice and ut back together. I think my problem was overhandling the cake itself. The bottom tier gave way on the way to the shower and just fell in on itself.

Looking back, chilling it really well may have helped; but I think the combination of the slippery filling, and handling the cake over and over was a lethal combination. I suppose that if you freeze or chill the cake before you re-assemble and handle it, that might prevent what happened to me from happening to you.

The good news, is that you've got time to figure this out!

Good luck, and let us know how it turns out!

Best,
Kat

Since it's only crumb coated I'd deconstruct it. I've done it several times with no problems. It's messy, though, but worth the peace of mind! I had a shifting cream cheese filling that I fought for a day before taking it apart, scraping it off, new dam, thicker icing, restocked... Perfect!