When I first starting baking and decorating cakes I was always amazed at Topsy Turvy Cakes.  There was a mystery about them and I could never quite figure out what technique they used to make them stable enough. To tell the truth, one of my worst cake experiences was when I tried to make my niece her first birthday cake and attempted this style of cake for the first time, but unfortunately everything went wrong. I sadly ended up taking the top two tiers off and just presenting the bottom tier…definitely not one of my finer moments in my cake career.  But thankfully those days are in the past and now the fears and anxiety of making topsy turvy cakes is over.  Since I had always found myself scouring the internet to get helpful hints about these styles of cakes and never found a tutorial that I loved I thought I would post one for all of you, so that you didn’t have to go through the same trouble I did.  I hope that you find this tutorial helpful and get the courage up to try one of these cakes too!

I don’t remember exactly, but I think my tiers were 5″, 7″, and 9″.  Each cake tier has three layers of cake and two layers of filling.  This particular cake was coconut buttermilk cake with lemon cream and coconut cream cheese frosting.  Once you fill and stack your cake you need to cut the top layer of the cake at an angle and then flip it over to create the sharp curve at the top of the cake.  To get those layers to stick together add a little filling and frosting to them to adhere. Always use a serrated knife when cutting your cakes and make sure they are thoroughly chilled too.

Also always make sure and pipe a buttercream dam around the edge of each cake layer when assembling so that the filling doesn’t squish out onto the outside of the cake.  This also helps with the stability of the cake.  I also trimmed the sides of the cake slightly to help with the topsy turvy look, but make sure and don’t carve away too much at the bottom as it can make the cake not as stable.  Once your cake is filled, you can either wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate it or you can keep working and frost the entire cake before letting it rest.  

Once frosted you need to refrigerate the cake until the frosting is hard.  Then take a piece of parchment paper and trace the size of the next tier that while be sitting on top of it.  Cut out the circle and place it on the center of the cake it will be sitting on.  Then using a serrated knife cute the shape out of the cake below.  You need to make sure you cut into the cake so that the area is level and flat.  You are basically creating the illusion of the cake sitting at an angle, when in reality it is level.

Then you need to frost the exposed area and cover the cake in fondant.

I also covered the cake board in the same color fondant so that they cake has a finished look to it.  Before stacking the cakes make sure and carve and cover all of your cakes in fondant. Then put your dowels (supports) in the cake.  Make sure and cut the dowels all the same height so the cake is level.  Then add a little buttercream to the base the cake will be sitting on and place the tiers onto each other…adjusting them until you like the position of the cake.

I then used my airbrush machine to color the fondant more of a pink color and added a pearl shimmer to it also.  The lighting in the kitchen is horrible so all the colors are a little off than what they really were…basically the cake was a shimmery pink color in really life.

Then I made fondant pearls to go around the cake tiers and sprayed them with silver lust dust spray.

I decorated the sides and top of the cake with fondant cut-outs.  I used stamps to get the impressions on them and then sprayed them silver too.  For the topper I added fondant to silver wire and bent it to make the design.  

I actually ended up adding a couple star cut-outs to the fondant base board of the cake which I think made it look better.  I also wrapped the edge of the cake base board in silver ribbon to pull it all together. 

Well, I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and found it helpful and inspiring!  Happy Cake Baking!

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