I am helping my daughter do a cake for a baptism. It's going to be 3 tiered, 6 / 8 /12. We originally told the customer (a friend) that we would put a fillng between the layers of each tier (actually would be 6 pieces of cake). My daughter says that you cannot fill a cake that large because the tiers layers will slide. We have been experimenting with some cakes and the the layers are sliding. And this is with just the 8" by itself. Is it true that generall speaking you do not fill large tiered cakes.

Are you damming the filling? Are you using too much filling?

I fill every layer of every cake. What are you filling it with? A fruit filling?

Cake with no filling? Yuck! You need at least icing between the layers! Make sure you have a good, stiff dam, and don't put in too much filling: 1/4" max! Thick fillings are best. For perishible fillings where I'm gonna have to refrgerate the cake anyway, I like to make the dam, add the filling, and then set it in the fridge for about 15 minutes, then add the top layer, then back in the fridge for an hour before icing. Really helps to give the cake time to settle and the filling and dam to set before icing. Once iced, back it goes in the fridge before deco and then store in fridge before travel and assembly on-site.

You must use dowel rods when you tier a cake. It stabilizes the cake layers. I even used dowel rods when I recently did a 4 layer cake (not tiered). I put two 1/2 inch white dowels cut to size thru the first three layers and then just topped with the fourth layer. No problem with the fillings. I used alternating layers of lemon curd and raspberry filling. Nothing slid and it even survived a 4 hour car trip. For a tiered cake you might use 3 or 4 rods per cake tier--depending on the size of your cakes. Space them evenly--more to the center. Find them anywhere you buy cake supplies. They are easy to cut. Small wooden dowels work well too, but for a tiered cake I'd use the white hollow dowels.

I'm with the rest of the gang that too much filling could be the problem. You also want to make sure you use a super stiff buttercream dam around the edges of the cake and them fill (1/4" from the outer edges and pipe it on using just a coupler). You make the super stiff bc by adding plenty of icing sugar until you can basically roll the sugar in your hand to make a ball shape, also 1/4" filling is a good amount to go with too.

You can also just use bc as your filling too.

BTW, welcome to CC!

Here's a link in case you you haven't seen it already that will help with all the acronyms used on here:

http://cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-2926.html

I once helped cater a wedding where someone did sheet cakes..they put one sheetcake on top of another with a raspberry jam-like filling - OMG! No dam, no nothing. It was sliding all over the place. Have you torted your layers or are you putting the entire layer on top on another layer?

Thanks to everyone who has replied. Because I am so new on this site it took me forever to figure out how to read your replies. Okay so I'm not the brightest when it comes to this forum stuff, but I'm learning.

I was under the impression that if you were filling with buttercream you do not need to damn. Is this true. I also heard from someone else that I needed to refrigerate the cake overnight to set. I am going to try again real soon on a small cake (I can eat just so much of these trials). I will let you all know who it works out.

I need to clarify something we were covering the tiered/filled cakes with fondant. When putting the fondant on the cake you could see the ridge around it were the filling was. I was told by another person on line that I was probably putting too much filling. I hope this is the problem. I am going to try a small cake very soon. I am so interested in learning how to do this but you can only eat so much cake. I have already gained 5 pounds. LOL

There's much more to filling the cake and slapping fondant over it. Have to crumbcoat, smooth, chill (some of us do that), apply fondant, smooth it and make sure the icing under the fondant was smooth BEFORE you put it on....so many steps to get the perfectly smooth seamless cake. Keep haning in here and read the forums. You'll be on the right track soon enough!

Not sure I understand the last thing you said "You also want to make sure that you do not put the bottoms of the cakes together (one should be on the cake board the other as the top of the cake, this will allow the cake to breath). " Could you clarify.

It has lungs!!! ??? I haven't heard about the breathing thing.
Aside from other great advice already here...
Are you leveling each layer by cutting off the rounded hump that bakes on the top? Your cakes need to be flat on top and bottom to be able to stack up square and not tilt one way or the other.

yes I am leveling the cakes, but I think the problem is the amount of fillling, so I will retry with less.

The top and bottom makes perfect sense and I always do it that way because it gives the straightest cake. But what about "the breathing"...?

Thanks so much "xstitcher" I am learning so much from this site. The funny thing is I never really had an interest in cakes until my daughter got started. She's going to Johnson and Wales next year and now I'm looking up more information than she is. I guess it's cause I have more time on my hands. Can't wait for the weekend to try some of these new ideas.