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Hi I’m going to attempt to do a car shaped cake for a child’s birthday. I was going to use buttercream with added chocolate as suggested in Paul’s tutorial instead of ganache, which may be too rich. However, I think ganache will give a firmer base to work with when doing all the detailing on the car. I’m thinking to sandwich with buttercream and coat with ganache. How deep should I make the layers of buttercream so as to keep the cake stable after its iced and I’m doing the detailing. Paul uses a lot of buttercream/ganache when filling and coating his cakes. When coating the cake with buttercream or ganache should it be a very thin coating?
Thank you

Hi Barbara

Personally I would recommend ganache over buttercream for crumbcoating and covering. Buttercream can be used as the filling if you like but definitely, if you want a sturdy structure, ganache is your man for for detailed work!
I think a quarter of an inch buttercream filling is quite adequate enough in each layer. Press the layers down to squish out any excess buttercream and swish off with a scraper. Once the cake is filled, firm the buttercream filling up in the fridge before ganaching, this will prevent the layers slipping around and make it easier to ganache.
Crumb coat is a thin layer of covering which seals all the loose crumbs. Once this first cover firms up, apply your ganache as shown in the tutorials.

Good luck with your car cake, post again if you need more information. 🙂

Once again thank you MIWL ??