30/12/2021
How to get a well stack tier cake
Hi y’all! I’ve seen a lot of questions about stacking tiered cakes so I wanted to share some of my tips for stacking success. Obviously, there are many ways to do this and some people might do it differently - I’m just sharing what works for me for buttercream and may work for you!
1) The base that your cake sits on is important. This is the foundation of your tiered cake and your cake will fall if the foundation is poor. You’re going to want to use a cake drum (*not* a board). A cake drum is thicker than a board, usually about 1” to 1.5” thick and is made of a sturdy material. Some people glue 3 to 4 cake boards together to create a drum - this works too. If your board is not sturdy enough, it will not support the weight of your cake and can cause shifting or cracking in your cakes.
2) The cake drum should be at least 2” wider than the widest tier of your cake. For example, if my widest tier is 10”, the cake needs to at least be on a 12” cake drum. I usually do 2” wider for simple decorated cakes and 4” wider for cakes that have decorations on the drum (like a message or figurines).
3) Instead of spending time looking for a cake drum that matches your cake, you can decorate your cake drum yourself. Some people use scrapbooking or contact paper to cover their drum. I use fondant. If you use fondant, you can “bake” your drum to get the fondant hard and sturdy, so it’s not affected by the moisture of the fridge. I “bake” at 175 F for 20 minutes. Once done baking, let it cool until it’s hard. Don’t touch it before it’s cooled and hardened. You can also use the oven light only, for this.
4) Each tier needs to sit on its own cardboard cake circle (also known as a board) before stacking. The cake circle should be the same width as the cake that is sitting on it. So a 6” cake should be on a 6” board. This will help disperse the weight of the cake so that your tiers don’t collapse on themselves once stacked.
5) You will need to dowel your cake. This step is important because it will help disperse the height and keep your cake from collapsing upon itself. Each tier that is supporting another tier will need dowels. You can use wooden dowels or milkshake/boba straws. I use milkshake straws for doweling tiers and a wooden dowel for the center dowel.
6) For doweling, I use one dowel per inch of cake that dowels are supporting, minus 2. So if I am doweling a cake to support a 6” cake, I will add 4 dowels.
7) Cut your dowels to height of the cake and make sure they are level. Your dowels should be flush with the top of the cake. I do this individually because sometimes, the cake isn’t perfectly even in height. An unlevel dowel will lead to an unlevel tier. If you can’t level the dowels 100%, that’s okay! Get them as level as possible. I put a layer of buttercream down over the top of the cake, once doweled. If that’s level, you’re okay.
8)) To actually dowel, I place the dowels in a circle, similar to the circumference of the cake circle it will be supporting. If you need help figuring out where to place them, I place a cake circle the same size as the cake it’s going to support and trace the outline. Then I remove the circle and place dowels along that outline, evenly spaced apart.
9) The center dowel needs to go through all of your tiers and for me, I like it to pierce the cake drum. This keeps the cake from shifting if it’s bumped or anything. I use a wooden dowel that is 3/8” wide. To sharpen the dowel, I have a pencil sharpener that I use only dowels. I sharpen it and then press into the cake. If my dowel is too tall, I clip it using a PVC pipe cutter.
10) Stack and dowel while your cake is cold. I don’t have a reason for this, it just helps with minimizing damage to buttercream while stacking.
11) Seams (where your tiers meet one another) can be hard. Sometimes, you’ll have a gap. If you can’t get them perfect, use decorations to your advantage! You can pipe over the seam, add ribbon, whatever! If you want a perfect looking seam, I take a very small round tip and pipe over the seam. I then use a silicone bowl scraper to quickly and gently smooth it over. This is why a cold cake helps.
I hope this helps someone!
Picture credit to the owner
