Help With Stacked Buttercream Wedding Cakes Please!
Decorating By nicoles-a-tryin Updated 11 Jul 2007 , 4:04am by indydebi
Hello....I have been doing this so many ways..and I am terrifed of it...My fingers stick through the bottom etc.
Please tell me how you assemble a 3 or 4 tiered buttercream cakes....do you assemble then ice on the cake...or ice and then stack? And how do you do that....Cambo said there was some posts...I couldn't seem to find them...Just curious if anyone knows...
Thank you so much, Nicole
ice then stack.. my fingers get in the way.. I use a border to hide and a small spatula if the poke is really big.. I stacked my cake REALLy chilled when I did my wedding cake last month.
some people use a pizza spatula looking thingy
I've been reading alot lately...
I read where someone (Sorry-I don't remember who) when pushing the dowels in the lower layer, leaves them sticking out about 1/2" so there will be room to remove fingers, then the weight of the tier will push them the rest of the way down
maybe this will help, haven't tried it myself, but makes sense to me
i did that too. then if it was the top tier, I used my spatula to push it down caus it wasnt heavy enuf
Assemble your layer cake then measure the height of the tier and cut your dowels the height of the tier.
Then:
Ice tiers
sprinkle powdered sugar in the area where the tier above will sit
insert your dowels and pull them back up a bit to give your fingers room to get out of the way
I have had to use my spatula, fork or butter knife to gently push down on the cake board to get the tier to settle into place
And repeat!
d
Can I ask another question along these lines? I'm doing my first wedding cake and it will be buttercream with a ribbon border. I've done stacked cakes before and usually hide any mishaps with the border. Can the same be done with ribbon? Or would the ribbon go on before stacking? I'm just trying to figure out how I would get the ribbon on (if done after stacking) without messing up the tier below it. Any tips or advice?
Can I ask another question along these lines? I'm doing my first wedding cake and it will be buttercream with a ribbon border. I've done stacked cakes before and usually hide any mishaps with the border. Can the same be done with ribbon? Or would the ribbon go on before stacking? I'm just trying to figure out how I would get the ribbon on (if done after stacking) without messing up the tier below it. Any tips or advice?
The grease from the bc will also probably change the color of the ribbon so make sure the bride knows this. For my sunflower wedding cake I pre-greased the ribbon before putting it on the cake so that way I didn't have uneven spots.
i am doing a square stacked cake 8, 12, 16 were and how many dowels on each layer Thanks
I like to dowel roughly equal to the size of the tier above so for your cake I would place 10-12 in the 16 and 6-8 in the 12. d
i am doing a square stacked cake 8, 12, 16 were and how many dowels on each layer Thanks
I put 4 in the corner locations and MAYBE one in the center (but rarely). I also use cardboards AND plastic plates in all of my cake assemblies.
I recently cut a cake for a bride (she got it from another source) and the bakery had put about 12 dowels in the cake (and it was only a 12" cake .... talk about overkill ... it was just a 3 tier cake, too). Cutting the cake was difficult because all of the holes made by the dowels created "crumbly" pieces. Too many can affect the quality of your cake when it's served.
Indydebi, when you said you use plastic plates on all you stacked cakes. Do you mean seperator plates? Also so you use them on stacked "cake on cake" tiers? Thanks for your help.
Darlene
Indydebi, when you said you use plastic plates on all you stacked cakes. Do you mean seperator plates? Also so you use them on stacked "cake on cake" tiers? Thanks for your help.
Darlene
Yes. All cakes, all tiers, all constructions ALWAYS have a plastic plate supporting the cake. My cake supply store has some with no feet that work, but if I don't have those handy, I use the regular ones with feet ... when I set the next tier on top of the cake, the feet go into the cake. Since they're only about 1" long, it's no biggie. The ones with no feet are so cheap that even if it's a drop-n-run cake, I don't require the plates to be returned. I treat them as disposable. It's not worth the gas to get back a plate that I can replace for a buck-ninety-nine.
Thank you all!! I appreciate it!!
Also indydebi ...Can the dowells go through the plastic plates? I just ask for plastic stacking plates???? Sorry....I hate computers...I wish I had all your phone numbers...HEHE!!!
no, dowels do not go thru the plate.
http://www.wilton.com/wedding/makecake/building/dowelrod/dowel_stacked.cfm Here's a visual showing how the dowels are put into the cake and the cake is sat (set?) down on top of them.
(and my phone number is on my website....call anytime!) 
Sorry indydebi one more question....How do you hold them all together then...if you are not dowelling all of them together? ...or you ALWAYS assemble there...eh?
Thank you for the phone numberl....How great!!
Do you teach wedding cake lessons??? I would drive down there...HEHE.
I get so nervous with the wedding cake stuff....I took the wilton courses...now there isn't anything else to further....like to put fondant on a 16inch square etc???
Thank you for all your help...I really appreciate it!!!! Thank goodness for this site!!!
I always assemble on site. Way back in the early days, I transported one wedding cake with 2 tiers already assembled .... and I will never do that again. I know lots of people do it very successfully .... I just choose to do it the "safe" way and transport in separate boxes, then assemble when I get there. It pretty much only takes me about 15 minutes to set up and finish a cake (not counting the time to unload the van).
Quote by @%username% on %date%
%body%