I need a sturdy cake recipe that will hold up well to carving and stacking multiple layers. I worry that the usual boxed cake mixes I normally use are just way too soft and crumbly to try to carve into shapes once they are stacked. Does anyone have any good recipes or suggestions?

Try to WASC in the recipe section (White Almond Sour Cream Cake) which starts with a box mix, but has a great texture. You can also add a package of pudding to firm it up some more.

Hi and Congrats on your 1st post, vickylara2004.

Everything you need to know to make, decorate and assemble tiered/stacked/layer cakes:

http://cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-605188.html

Above super thread has popular CC recipes for crusting American buttercreams, several types of fondant and doctored cake mix (WASC and other flavor variations) - and so much more.

The "so much more" would be cake making & baking help, tips & hints, smoothig b/c help and complete & accurate directions for using common cake support systems.

HTH

Thank you so much for the recipe. You mentioned that I could add a box of pudding mix to it to make it a little more firm. Would that be the smaller or larger box of pudding? And also, would I need to add any more liquid if I added the pudding? Thanks again.

Use a small box of pudding and no extra liquid needed. There are lots of information and recipes on this site so be sure to check them out.