When my sister-in-law needed a cake for her son’s graduation, I volunteered to make it.  I really just wanted an excuse to try my hand at a 3-tier cake.  I think it came out pretty good, and it tasted divine.  The top tier is the miette’s tomboy chocolate cake w/ chocolate mousseline; the middle tier is Cordon Rose Banana cake w/ chocolate, and the bottom tier is Golden Yellow cake from TCB filled w/ strawberry mousseline.  Ganache w/ 60% cocoa on all the tiers.  Fondant decorations—I really need to roll them thinner, but they seem so thin while I’m doing it. 

My brother-in-law, who is a professional photographer took some photos, but this is my own photo.

OMG, JD, that cake is a beautiful celebration in itself!

I don’t know how I could choose a slice.  I’d have to keep sneaking by the table until I’d had all three layers!

How ambitious to do all of those flavors! Yum.

Wow JD,
  it looks so amazing! and more importantly it looks delicous! Did everyone have a favorite out of all the flavors?......Shirin

Wow, you did a fantastic job!  What a great variety of cake types/flavours. 
Was this your very first tiered cake?

Really a wonderful cake, JD!  I love all the different flavors and how well they all work with the single outer frosting.  What’ll be next, a wedding cake?

Thanks for the nice comments!  The three cake flavors came about by accident more than by design.  At first, the whole thing was going to be the yellow cake because TCB had an all-inclusive recipe for 3 tiers (12/9/and 6) and I’m not confident about my ability to reconfigure a recipe for my pan sizes.  But then, I had a whole bunch of brown bananas and I LOVE the Cordon Rose banana cake.  So, that became the 9 inch layer.  That left a problem of what to do with the 6” layer and the only recipe in either book for a 6” pan was the Miette’s Tomboy cake.  I’d previously made it twice with a 6x3 pan, but the recipe said it could be done in 2 6x2” layers so that’s what I did.  The 12” actually proved the most difficult to bake.  It was my first time ever baking this size cake layers and I had trouble fitting both pans in my 30” oven.  I did it on 2 racks and the top layer ended up rising as high as the heating element, which meant the crust peeled off as I removed the pan from the oven. 

In choosing the flavors for the three fillings, I had in mind neopolitan ice cream, but I was afraid I’d run out of mousseline before decorating the cake so the top layer ended up being filled with chocolate, which I had plenty of, instead of vanilla.  I’m very resourceful, so I made the chocolate filling by mixing some of the ganache (which I also had plenty of) into the mousselline.  One little girl said it was “too chocolaty” but she was only about 5 years old.  Several adults tried all three flavors and the cake was a huge success. 

Yes, this was my first 3-tier cake, but I won’t bore you with the part about the dog eating half of one of the 12” layers the night before the party…

Wow, quite ambitious, three different cakes in one. And I love the decoration, I think the thick fondant is quite nice, gives it a nice 3-D effect. I’m sure it was a happy graduate!

And no, you’re not boring us with the story about the dog - tell all!

A dog, too??

You need to write a screwball comedy starring this cake!  The male/female lead should be Rock Hudson & Doris Day or Cary Grant & Ann Sheridan (the Oomph Girl).

I love the background story on how this cake came to be! It also gives me confidence to know that even with numerous mishaps and unplanned events (especially the part about the top crust getting scraped off, OMG!), the finished cake can still turn out beautiful and delicious, with no one the wiser. Teaches me to not get discouraged when something goes a little awry when on a baking project, just use my head and forge onward… It is true that baking is a science and that Rose’s recipes are very precise, but there is lots of room for the unexpected, given a little creativity and know-how!