I have a big wedding cake coming up in a few weeks and I could really use some advice. I generally shy away from cakes with fillings because, no matter what I do, it bulges. I do a dam and the filling seems to push the dam out into a bulge.

How do you guys do those big cakes with fillings and not have a bulge??

THANKS!

I highly recommend getting Sugar Shack's Perfecting the Art of Buttercream DVD www.sugaredproductions.com . Her techniques for fighting the bulge really have worked for me.
Here is one of my cakes before I had her DVD
http://cakecentral.com/gallery/1627557/1627558
here is one after
http://cakecentral.com/gallery/1959305
Both cakes are buttercream cakes and filled. And the white and blue one had filling in it vs the first one that just had buttercream between the layers.

Make sure your damn is really stiff buttercream and don't put it right up to the edge. Are you letting your cakes rest? The big recommendation here on CC is to either let them sit (uniced but wrapped overnight) or place a weight on top of a wrapped uniced cake to force the bulge(if it's going to occur) before you ice it. Then you can removed the excess icing causing the bulge.

Hope that helps a little. Good luck.

I too, highly recommend this dvd. I just purchased it and viewed it and it is excellant. Her technique takes a little time, but the outcome is worth it.
The one thing she stresses is to use a stiff icing to make the dam.
You can view previews of her tuturials on her website, sugarshack, maybe some will help.

Ahh...thanks guys! Great ideas! I'm going to have to get that dvd

I set a heavy cutting board on the top for about a hour or so and it compresses the cake down enough so that when I final coat it...it doesn't bulge.