I need to make a topsey turvey cake to feed 50 people covered in buttercream. Two layers ea, 12 bottom 8 top? How do I cut, stack, and secure. Can anyone help me please? Thanks

Wow! That's quite an undertaking. First I'd suggest you read the tutorial on here on how to do a topsy-turvy, and check youtube, there are some good tutorials. Second, that seems like a lot of cake for 50 servings! Also, when you say two layers, do you mean each tier will be two layers? I would suggest at least three for each. Cutting a frozen cake is much easier. There are two different ways to stack and support a topsy-turvy. I did one (the pink and purple in my pics) by cutting out a "hole" in my bottom tier for the top tier to sit in. Covering in fondant is much easier than buttercream IMHO because you will have crumbs from carving, but it can be done, I've seen some beautiful ones on here!

If you go by Earlene's chart, you have 60 servings there, and with Wilton's, it's 80! That is for 2 layers, but like I said before, it will look much better with 3, so the pieces will not have to be as wide which means more servings. This is how I did my cake: I baked 3-8" cakes, and 3-6" cakes and froze them (overnight). Then I leveled each, and filled. then while they were still frozen I carved the top and tapered the sides. Next, crumbcoated and put dowels in bottom tier. Then since you are not doing fondant, I would cut a hole the same size as the top tier in the bottom tier, and place the top tier on top. Drive a dowel down through the whole cake! Then ice and decorate. I am by no means an expert, but that's how I did mine and I was darn proud of it! lol

Sounds great! Thanks so much

i agree with joyfullysweet that you should watch a youtube video tutorial...this is one of the best! this is what i followed to a T for all of my topsy turvy's.

i think the 8 (serves 20-25ish without carving) and 6 (serves 8-10 without caring) might be too small, especially b/c you will be carving down to taper and lose a bit of servings. you might just want to go with an 8 & 10 to make sure you have enough (who doesn't love leftovers?!)

i also bake graduated cake sizes for my TT's. example...if i want the top of the tier to be 8 inches, i make an 8, 8, 6...it actally helps me in the carving process. if i wanted to bottom tier to be 10 inches on top, i'd bake a 10, 10, 8. just a thought! and i think that's what jannell does too (she's the one in the video below).

Yes! That was the exact video I was thinking of. Using graduated tiers would be easier. I only have a limited number of pans (and to be honest, am a bit lazy!) to do that! lol I just watched that video over and over again until I felt confident enough to tackle it. I did mine I little different then hers, I cut the hole out of the bottom tier after is was covered in fondant (a la "cake boss")

I have never made a topsy turvy cake, but I am planning to soon. I have Sharon Zambito's Totally Topsy Turvy video, and would recommend it to anyone wanting to make the cake.

Have you thought about using a dummy cake for one layer to make the design look correct without having too much cake? Just a thought.

Good Luck!
HTH

Thank you for the link to youtube. I will also watch it over and over again. I am making the cake next weeked. Thanks all!