Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A

I made a Victoria sandwich cake, 2 layers filled with jam. The cake looked OK (albeit with a slight dome) and the sides seemed straight. After a crumb coating I covered it with fondant icing. but there was a groove around the cake where the layers met.

My cake tins are straight sided so am I making a mistake in the way i fill the cake?

Any suggestions how to avoid this dent please.

Hello womat

Did you only use jam as the filling of was there buttercream too? It could be a few reasons why this has happened to your cake. Some victoria sandwich cakes are too soft in texture to take sugarpaste and are only intended to have either a sprinkling of icing sugar or a soft swirly covering of buttercream. If there is too little filling, the weight of the sugarpaste will compress the soft texture of the cake, crushing the crumbcoat. If too much filling, it can spill out of the sides of the cake causing the crumbcoat and icing to bulge. It also depends on the type of crumbcoat. Soft buttercream crumbcoat will not make a good strong structure for enrobment. A stiffer buttercream or ganache crumbcoat stands up better to the weight of icing. If you think it may be the recipe, perhaps try one which is a little sturdier. Mrs Jones has a vanilla cake recipe in the baking section of the tutorials library. Hope this helps, however if need more information just post again.

Hello Madewithlove

Thank you for your reply.

I made the cake with more flour than a traditional Victoria to make it firmer and I only used jam in the filling.
because I was worried about the filling bulging out.

In fact i got the reverse no bulge but a dent!.

PS trial lettering on cake went well. Thank you

So I guess it must have been the lack of filling? I think perhaps there wasn’t enough substance in beween the layers. You should still be able to avoid the dent by using a firmer crumbcoat. Get it well into the gaps where the layers meet and let it set hard before icing.
Glad the lettering is taking shape. I’m totally useless at letter placement, it’s to do with spacial awareness or lack of it! xx

Good suggestions. Friend told me about crumb coat and said it was a very slack buttercream coat so will definitely try using firmer buttercream coating.