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Am making a four tier sponge cake using the teardrop tin with buttercream in the middle for a friend’s birthday this weekend. The top will be a red velvet cake and i will also be using sugar syrup to make the sponges moist . I am scared my cake might wobble or break once the inside is moist. Although I will be using dowels. Any advise will be great. Many thanks in advance.

Hi NikNak42

Butter cream can sometimes ooze out of the sides of the cake causing bulges in the sugarpaste. I suggest either pipe a stiff butter cream dam a few centimetres in from the edge and let it crust over before filling. This usually contains any spill outs. If you don’t want to make a dam don’t over fill and keep away from the edge of the layers. Also don’t overdo jam if using as the two fillings slip and slide.
It would be better to use ganache for the crumb coating as in the tutorials because it makes a much stronger base for the sugar paste and for dowelling. In the tutorials we are shown how to dowel round and square cakes. As you’re making teardrops it might be useful to make templates of the shape, unless you have the shaped cake boards, and use them for marking out the distance for the dowelling as Paul shows. I don’t think your cakes will break ( have faith!), just build a good strong foundation.
Just found this http://www.ehow.com/how_8181440_make-icing-dam.html might be useful. x