I am pretty sure you are all going to say I needed a stiffer damn, but just wanted to tell my story and get advice!

I had two cake orders this past weekend, both of which were for my sister and my very good friend, so no angry customers (thank goodness!!). Both cakes were WASC w/strawberry sleeve filling. My cakes were very moist but room tempurature when I was assembling and I thought I used a pretty stiff damn of icing before I put my filling in. I made sure that I didn't over fill and while decorating I had NO problems with slippage.

The problem came after both cakes were picked up, they BOTH slid (top layer of cake slid off of bottom). I am so embarrased because both cakes were for showers with many potential customers. I normally do not do fruit fillings, most are some type of thick filling....do you think the moisture from the cake along with the thickness (or lack there of) of the damn caused this?

Any and all advice is greatly appreciated!!

Karen

Maybe you needed a stiffer filling. I know I've heard of fruit fillings slipping and they all mention to stiffen your fruit filling by adding gelatin to it rather than straight fruit filling, but I know there are people out there that don't have issues w/this either. So I would like to hear from other as well. I had this issues when I did a white chocolate ganache filling for the first time, I've always done dark chocolate and I know white chocolate's ratio is different, but I'm guessing my ratio was not good for a filling and my cake was slipping and sliding like there was no tomorrow.! I understand your grief!

Probably too much filling was used. Stiff dam is essential and did you let the cake "settle"?

Sounds like too much filling to me, too. Straight fruit fillings should be just a 'smear'. You should be able to see through it. If it's opaque, it's too much!

I use just a smear as well, and I only use stiff fillings. The way I look at it is if I were sitting on fruit filling in the car, I'd be sliding around too!

LOL! That's really funny Artscallion! I would be too!

This happened to me on a wedding cake delivery. The "post-mortem" analysis was too much sleeved filling (which is all I use, so this was a first-n-last that this happened).

I pipe a dam using a piping bag with a coupler but no tip. The filling comes up just halfway up the dam. the cake should settle, as mentioned above.

I would also question the driving, as you say the cakes were picked up. My cake slid because the car in front of me slammed on his brakes. I don't think a cake will just slide unless there was a sharp turn, sudden braking, etc. I will agree that its POSSIBLE for a cake to slide just from the general vibration of driving ..... but I'm betting there may have been more than that involved.

I have done probably 1,000s of cake w/sleeved fruit fillings and they didn't slide apart. I never used extra stiff icing - just a thick/heavy line of b'cream piped from tip 12.

Most of those cakes were picked up by customers. I would not blame the filling.

Without seeing what you did for a dam it's hard to say just what went wrong. I question the driving.

Was the cake placed *flat* on the floor of the vehicle? Or could it have been on (even a slight) angle? Most car seats are NOT level and could easily cause a cake to slide apart if that's where it was placed for transport.

Were both of these cakes picked up & transported at the same time - in the same vehicle?

What you could do in the future is place straws in the corners of the cake to hold it together; these would be removed when the cake is in place.

Thanks everyone! Again just super happy this happened to family and not a paying customer!!

I do think my damn of icing could have been stiffer and now that I go back and think about it I usually take a cardboard round and press on the damn before I put my filling in...this time I don't remember doing that on either. I did let them settle, but probably not as long as I should have, but there was no buldging the next day when they were picked up, which was long after they were completed.

I am going to attempt another cake this weekend since I have a ton of sleeve filling left over. Hopefully a good lesson learned and hopefully it won't happen again!

I don't use much when adding fruit filling and sometimes thicken in with gelatin. I use IndyDebi's BC recipe so I take a bit out after mixing well but before adding the final amount of milk to get my favoured consistency. I use this thick icing in a piping bag and add my damn. The filling still comes nowhere near my damn. Crumb coat and settle over night.

I had a bulging/ sliding nightmare a few weeks ago. It was so hot here when I made my cake this week that I was terrified of a repeat disaster. I made the dam out of cake ball stuff from cake scraps from leveling the cake. It worked really well. I piped around the edge of the cake with the cake stuff in a bag with just a coupler. I think its going to be my go to in really hot weather.

If I am going to use a fruit or any other "slippery' filling, I use my regular dam around the edge, and "scoop out" about an 1/8th to a 1/4 in of the bottom layer before I fill it with the fruit filling........ It is kind of protected against sliding then.......

I always fill my cake like a bulls-eye. The dam on the outside edge then I just start alternating rings on the inside. Filling then icing filling then icing until I get to the center. The extra icing provides insurance against slipping and bulging and it looks really pretty when it is cut.

I know this is an old thread, but I happened to stumble across it when I was researching sleeved fruit fillings and slipping cake layers--it's been a long time since I used a sleeved fruit filling for a cake and want to avoid a potential disaster for a cake order next month.  

I will be frosting the cake with white chocolate ganache before covering it with fondant like I usually do, but I also plan to make the dam out of the ganache this time for a little extra security.   I used to use more fruit filling the last time I used a sleeved fruit filling for a cake, but it was for friends and family with no transport and I didn't have any issues, but this next cake will be for a customer and involving transport so I want to do the best I can to avoid a potential disaster. 

I plan to use just a "smear" of the sleeved fruit filling based on the recommendations in this thread, but I do have a silly question about that; will the "smear" of the sleeved fruit filling mostly absorb into the cake and make it seem like there isn't really a filling?  If that's the case, I thought about spreading a thin "smear" of buttercream on the cake layers and then the "smear" of fruit filling on top of the buttercream to prevent the fruit filling from absorbing into the cake.  But, then I wonder if that would then increase the chances of the layers slipping again.  Also, it's a strawberry fruit filling with chunks of strawberries in it...will the chunks add to the slipping issue?  Should I chop them up into smaller pieces?

I have a feeling that I'm probably over-thinking this and making it more difficult than it really is or needs to be, lol!  Any suggestions and advise would be appreciated!      

TIA!