Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A

Hi… I made a lemon sponge and had major issues when I carved it. One carved at the top and when I tried to put butter cream on it slightly collapsed however I managed to rescue it with butter cream. Then when I stood it up on the cake board and tried to applied the buttercream it kept on leaning to one side and as I used hot water to smooth the buttercream onto the cake I think the sponge got a bit wet.

Not sure where I went wrong was because I used sponge cake instead of chocolate cake. Feel really disappointed because it looked straight forward.

Regards

Susan

Hi Susan

I’m so sorry to hear you have had problems with your handbag cake. Did you use the Jane Hornby zingy lemon cake recipe? That recipe is for a dense but mosit madeira so it should have produced a firm cake suitable for carving. I have used that recipe many, many times and it has been perfect.
It is possible that water got into your sponge but it still would not have become so soggy that it would lean in the way you described. Without knowing which recipe you used it is difficult to say why you had the problem. If you chill the cake in the fridge first it will firm it up and be better for carving. Did you use a firmer buttercream to form a crust? Perhaps use ganache next time to make a much firmer base. Could there have been too much filling inside the cake which made it slide? These are just a few other points to consider or was it definitely the sponge?
Please don’t feel disappointed, use this as a learning experience and try again. It is a straightforward tutorial as you’ve said. You have just had a bit of bad luck, we all do from time to time Next time will be so much better. x