ahhhhh. so my first topsey turvey attempt. had it all mapped and planned, fondant made, cakes baked, filling made, lets start stacking and carving. Its all going great! im thinking YAY something is actually going to work out for me.. FOR ONCE! leave it stacked and crumb coated ready for decorating the next day. its holding up GREAT. Im starting to get cocky now.. i can hear the "ooohs and ahhhs" in my head now. go to bed happy. ake up.. check the cake.. its still fine! didnt get attacked in the night or anything. the "ooohs and ahhhs" are getting louder now. =) Lets start decorating.. geez its getting hot.. oh well.. its should be fine, minimal filling, itll be sweet as sugar. Get the crsuting Bc on, smooth it, still going well! get the fondant accents on.. ohmygosh! they are sticking to! holy crap.. i cant beleive ive done.. my gosh its hot tho... finished the cake.. not stacked yet, (will stack at mums place). ohk. time to rest before i move onto the truffle tower. crap.. its like 37 degrees C today(99F).. (i hate summer with passion..) walk into the kitchen.


that doesnt look right.. its sliding.. oh S**t. the angle of my bottom topsey slid and fell. oh goody. its ohk.. breathe. i can fix this.. itll just be a little ugly on the side.. ill just put it at the back.. *breathe*. So i fix it the best i can. supported the crap outta that sucker. its going to be fine. the "ooohs and ahhhhs" are making a small return..

drive like 10ks per hour, map out my route to avoid all speed bumps. hink its all ohk. go get the cake outta the car.

yup. im gonna kill someone. it collapsed somehow again. I dont know how, seeing as there was no angle left, and there were supports everywhere.. this sucker just HATES me. Whatever. i hate you too cake. Dont even look at me or youll end up on that brick wall..

well.. this was the finished result...
http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1595803

lucky it was only for my sisters 12th bday. so it was ok.

but does anyone know what happened? or do cakes just hate me? im starting to really think its the latter... grrrrrr


im still fuming...shlda just dove head first into the cake and ate my way out...

Well, this was the first thing I read this morning and you got my day a giggling but not about the tragedy but when you told the cake you hated it too. I am so sorry it happened, don't feel bad, we all have them days and sometimes more than others. Good luck, now breath, big deep breath in and now let it out.

Oh my! I am sorry about what happened to your cake, but I do thank you for the wonderful way you told the story. Gave me a good laugh to start my day!

Oh, I'm sorry! I'm afraid I have no advice, b/c I don't have the guts to even try a TT cake! But I think it looked really cute from the front. And thanks for the laugh - I can totally picture you yelling at the cake, like something out of a movie! Sorry it made you hate it!

Oh no! I am sure that the heat played a MAJOR factor in this. I haven't attempted the TT design yet...not sure I am up for that kind of stress!!!

Sorry this happened to you. Do you think you may have put in too many supports in the bottom tier causing it to be weak? I don't know, just trying to help you figure out why this happened to you. Cute cake and I'm sure your sister loved it anyway . You should consider writting as a profession...reading your story reminded me of Erma Bombeck. I loved everything that woman put on paper.

I totally agree with mamawrobin (about the writing professionally). Your story cracked me up. Sorry about your cake though. I'm new to the whole cake designing process, so I'm afraid I can't be much help. I never tried one of these cakes, and I don't think I will any time soon. I have enough stress over a regular cake design. I'm certain she loved it anyway. The cake was cute.

Well by no means am I a pro or anything but do you always use those straws for supporsts? It kind of seems to me they are a lil too thin. Of course could be the picture resize you had to do but I think you needed wider/thicker supports . JMO

But needless to say your cake does look very cute, and Im sure your lil sis loved it.

I SOOOO get the "I hate you cake", "don't even look at me or you are on the brick wall cake!!", and my favorite "dive into it and eat my way out"!!! I so feel your pain and most of my cakes jack with me too!!! So what kind of bc are you using? (butter or shortening) I use indydebi's and haven't had a slider since. ~knocks on wood~

I'm sorry this happened but feel free to send summer my way, I spent 2 hours today digging out of a big snowstorm. I would gladly take some sun and all the heat you can spare.

I am so sorry this happened to you. At least you still had a cake. The only topsy turvy cake I ever made was for a baby shower. Everything was going very well until I attempted to deliver it. i made one quick stop and checked on it. Well it fell over in the car and was unsalvagable. I was devistated. I was more upset than the mom to be was.

Oh I'm sorry this happened to you!! Cake was very cute though

I have done one TT cake, 3 tiers (in my pics) and it stayed for me. There is a turtorial on TT here on CC and I followed that. It worked great!
I carved out a level circle the size of the base of my next tier, supported it with wooden dowels, and left them sticking out of the cake about an inch. I placed my tier on the dowels and the weight pressed the cake into the hole I had cut. Had to do a little smoothing of icing but most of it was being covered with a decoration at the base of the tiers.
I made sure I used 4 dowels and that they were toward the center of the cake (maybe about 2in?) in from the sides. This was plenty to support the middle tier and the top tier I used 3 bubble tea straws (those suckers are strong!!) which worked great.

Hope you try another TT soon. I had a lot of fun (and frustration) with mine and I'm looking forward to doing another one. HTH!!

Oh, honey, the number of cakes I've lost to heat and humidity would amaze you! Cakes that slide, crumb coats and condensation that melt your fondant, elephant skin, and on and on and on! I post about this and people in other hot places (Texas, for example) say they NEVER have these problems. And I think I've finally figured it out: most American homes have air-conditioned kitchens. I'll bet you don't and neither do I. The best I can do is to wipe my brow and hope I don't sweat into the batter! And you can't refrigerate, because the condensation when you take it out turns the fondant itself to water. I refrigerated the first fondant cake I made here and when I took it out, the fondant started to slide and crack. It turned out okay, because the cake was supposed to look kind of antique, but I've had many disasters. I made a TT drum set (the drums were stacked), but it looked like it had been on LSD, because instead of hard shells, the sides were running down like Dali's watches.

Sorry, i actually had some suggestions to offer, but I got carried away complaining! If you're stabilizing your cakes with dowels, try using soda straws instead (they displace less cake and help preserve the structure of the bottom layer. The second thing is something I think you're already doing, if I'm reading you photos correctly: make the TT the hard way, by cutting out a little niche in the bottom layer where the next layer will fit in. That way, the topsy-turviness (bet you never heard that word before!) is an optical illusion and the cake is much more stable. It's a grind, b/c you have to calculate the size of the niche including the thickness of the fondant from both layers and it's hard to get right without a little practice, but it's worth it. The third thing is for when you take the cake out of the oven: freeze or refrigerate the leveled and torted layers (in lots of plastic wrap or zipper bags with waxed paper between the layers) while the cake settles - I usually leave it overnight and then do it again for a bit after crumb coating. Let the cake come to room temperature before covering the cake with fondant. All these things make the cake more stable, but I know what you mean. Mother Nature never meant for us to decorate cakes in 37° weather!

Oh I so know where you are coming from Noahsmummy. I am in Ipswich Qld and it has been as hot as hades at times and a few choice words spoken and repented of afterwards have been spoken.

When I first read the title to your post I thought "Oh my, she how can this post be published (as Summer is the name of a member in another cake forum)?" Then I read your post and laughed till it hurt, only because I've been there and felt I was right there with you.

I however, haven't and probably won't ever try to do a topsy turvy cake, the stress would kill me!

With buttercream I have such nightmares over it, I wonder if it is worth it. Fondant is much more stable, providing it don't rain ! Buttercream is faster. Oh well the trials and tribulations continue

To me it looks like you didn't carve the hole out big enough for the next tier to set down in. If you don't make sure it is big enough, that is what happens, it will "give way" from the pressure of the weight on the sides that aren't cut out enough. I don't think it had anything to do with the heat, just my opinion!

I had to see where you lived! As I look out my window and still see the remnants of 3 feet of snow. We had a record breaking winter.

It was very cute. And you're first time! Awesome! Live and learn and laugh!

I'm not experienced enough to know what happened but thanks for the reminder of what Summer is really like. I, too, have been busy daydreaming of the days when I don't have to shovel the end of the drive so hubby can get through when he gets home from work.

Fondant wasn't much better for me last year when I had to make a birdhouse cake. At the end, it was constantly in and out of the fridge to try to keep it from melting everywhere. I even considered just standing in the doorway to the fridge and decorating it while it was inside. The only air conditioner I have downstairs is one in the living room window. I even tried setting up a table in front of that, but it was still just too darned humid.

I really need to find a way around that before Summer arrives here.

In the meantime, I don't suggest eating your way out from the inside. 30 lb. weight gain tells me that's a bad idea every morning when I get on the scale. *Sigh* Pass the carrots, please. LOL

Poor you! It is so not caking weather at the moment - everything I have touched in the last few weeks has melted, collapsed or both!

I hate summer here, I'm from the UK originally so everyone assumes I came here for the weather - which is kind of true, I love winter here, but summer is hot and humid and revolting!!

Never done a topsy turvy so I can't offer any help there but you have my sympathy in droves!

Please give indydebis bc a chance as there are those in hot and humid areas of the US that swear by it!!

ive seen that recipe talked about alot, and have really wanted to try it, but unfortunately we dont have anything like powdered dream whip here in aus....=( but thanks... ill just wait till im rich and buy myself a house with aircon everywhere and a car with really super cold aircon. hahaha. i can dream...

I totally feel your pain! I'm in Far North QLD, and don't have air con... I've had too many disasters with BC, now I'm a ganache girl, all the way... Although I still seem to have too many disasters! LOL

ETA - I soooo wish it would snow here!!

haha i have do have one air con.. that directly faces a wall, and only cools the place infront on the air con down by about 3 degrees.. so i dont even bother with it these days. and yes! i love ganache to! its beautful stuff.. lol. then you can just eat the rest when the cake is finished.. oh so bad but oh so good. =)

I had to read this post because my name is Summer. Glad to see it's directed at the weather and not a person
Oh man. This is really making me appreciate our mild weather in the North West. I complain about the cool weather but I guess it does have one upside
Diving in over your head is sometimes the best way to learn so you go girl. Kuddos for having the guts to try a TT, I haven't yet.

haha sorry summer! defiantly directed at the season. =)