Sinking Cake

Decorating By goldie77 Updated 29 May 2014 , 4:45pm by nadiacorallo

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goldie77 Posted 21 May 2014 , 8:13am
post #1 of 7

A[IMG]http://cakecentral.com/content/type/61/id/3239176/width/200/height/400[/IMG]

Can anyone shed some light as to why my cake is sinking like this? It has whipped ganache filling.

6 replies
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Lizzybug78 Posted 21 May 2014 , 8:22am
post #2 of 7

Hi Goldie

 

I get this occasionally and it's soooo frustrating!

 

The most usual culprit is the filling being a bit too soft - it can't take the weight of the cake/paste on top. I take it the top tier is being supported and isn't just sitting on the base? If not, that will def be adding to the problem.

 

I haven't found a way to fix it I'm afraid, but maybe some bright spark will have a secret weapon up their sleeve :)

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goldie77 Posted 21 May 2014 , 8:56am
post #3 of 7

AThanks Lizzy. Yes, I have dowel in the bottom tier. I pulled the middle tier off and thought maybe that the problem was that I didn't put the dowel in wide enough, I just out it in the centre.

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matthewkyrankelly Posted 21 May 2014 , 12:17pm
post #4 of 7

You'll get different answers on this.  However, when you have a softer filling, it will compress just a little.  One way to reduce this effect is to compress your cake after you fill it and before you cover it with fondant.  Some simply push it down by hand.  Some people put a large ceramic tile on the filled cake for a few hours or overnight.  The idea is to get these bulges to show up before you cover the cake in fondant.

 

Some will say this is unnecessary.  They may be using a stiffer filling. The need for this depends on your filling consistency.

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mattyeatscakes Posted 21 May 2014 , 7:01pm
post #5 of 7

AUse a stiffer frosting to dam the cake, fill with any type of filling. I got a tip from a fellow bake that her dam consisted of frosting and a bit of cake crumbs so that it's so thick the you can almost roll your buttercream.

Yes, let the cake settle. If this is for a bottom tier or if you have a cake topper on top, you can dowel the cake and take the dowel out. Yes, the cake is already covered in fondant at this stage. This will give the cake a hole where trapped air can escape. This was also a tip given by a fellow caker. It works wonder for me :) Goodluck!

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goldie77 Posted 21 May 2014 , 8:22pm
post #6 of 7

AThank you very much everyone for your replies. Definitely some ideas to try next time, which all make complete sense :)

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nadiacorallo Posted 29 May 2014 , 4:45pm
post #7 of 7
When I have a cake to do with a soft filling, I ALWAYS pipe a border along the edge of each layer of cake and then you can place your softer filling in the middle to smooth out before stacking. The icing used for the border needs to be very stiff. I use a very stiff butter cream recipe that is relatively firm even at room temp. This way even if the cake is out of the fridge, this border should hold in the soft icing center. I have used whipped cream, custards etc. for the filling with no problems with bulging at all afterwords. Hope this helps! 

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