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This is going to be my 1st wedding cake to make. I'm so nervious. was needing some suggestions on sizeings of the tiers and how i should go about doing this. Please help me!

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Using dummies would definitely help with the weight issue and some of the stacking issues.  But be careful in pricing with the dummies.  I have read a lot of threads about using dummies and most cakers charge the same for dummy as for real cake cause the dummy costs as much as real cake and decorating costs the same for real as for dummy.  If  you use sps, you will pass the cost onto the bride.  Have you pinned down the number of servings from the bride yet? 

 

VERY cool cake, Barbarann!

TLC "Next Great Baker" Monday night had a 6 tier wedding cake episode. That may help you with ideas. They had to redo the cakes 2x, so you can see issues they ran into. One being the cake leaning - you will definitely need dowel rods on each individual level along with 1 large dowel rod down the center. They delivered theres fully stacked and decorated, but that's on tv as well. It depends on how long your drive is as well.

 

Best of luck!

Wow you did an amazing job on the wedding cake pictured. How did you get such intricate details on the people on the cake?? What did you use to make the very small colors, for example the black on the eyes?

Barbarann Garrard said:

if she absolutely wants 6 tiers, you could always  use styrofoam dummies  on a few  tiers, that way you have the effect of a large cake and have the cake say Boston using each tier for a letter.. the cake will not weigh as much either.

 My very first wedding cake, pictured here, fed almost 300 people and these were VERY generous slices. My cake was delivered stacked with  several support dowels to act as a platform for the upper tiers and a center dowel to keep the tiers from shifting . I carried this myself and it was pretty heavy.. it was around 50 lbs. (without the gumpaste/modeling chocolate figures , which i added when i got there )

 it wasnt the BIGGEST cake i ever did , but it was my first wedding cake, and I was definately nervous! ( the bride helped design it,.. she choose these colors and asked for a "boho,funky, hippy, yet tasteful  design, and i want stripes on the middle tier " ,  which is why it is so far-from-typical looking! )

 luckily I only had to carry it about 60 ft. the bottom was  16"  and 5" tall , ( 3 layers) , then 15" hex , 5" tall ( 3 layers)  and then the top was 10" ,  4.5" tall.( 3 layers)

seriously, that is going to be a LOT of cake and you are going to have a LOT of leftover !

 

Okay thank you so much. I will check that out. I used to watch Ace of Cakes ALLL the time along with all the other cake shows but sense my boyfriend and I moved into our own apartment last month we dont have cabel yet haha.

Dawnetta Pompeo said:

I would recommend using something other than wooden dowels for your supports.  If you are a slightly off level it could spell disaster, even with with a dowel down the middle.  Trust me - been there, done that.  I have not stacked a 6 tier cake that was all cake in a while, but after that disaster I ordered a bunch of bubble tea straws (if you've ever watched Ace of Cakes, they use them).  A lot of folks also recommend a SPS (single plate support) or a SFS (stress-free support) system.  There is a price issue, but if you do lots of stacked cakes it might be worth the investment.  Here is one link to an SPS  http://www.sugarcraft.com/catalog/wedding/Wplates-pillars.htm

 

Good luck, and please share pictures of the finished cake!

Dawnetta

okay thank you!!

denette lynch said:

Using dummies would definitely help with the weight issue and some of the stacking issues.  But be careful in pricing with the dummies.  I have read a lot of threads about using dummies and most cakers charge the same for dummy as for real cake cause the dummy costs as much as real cake and decorating costs the same for real as for dummy.  If  you use sps, you will pass the cost onto the bride.  Have you pinned down the number of servings from the bride yet? 

 

VERY cool cake, Barbarann!

You do have a lot of great info here from everyone... my suggestion is to purchase a level from the hardware store and use it only for cakes.  Be sure that each layer is level as you go and you will be fine in the end.  If you use dowels, straws, sps what ever... be sure that EVERY one is EXACTLY the SAME size.  that is key in making sure the cake is level  Do not cut the dowels to fit the cake because if it is not level you are in trouble.  If the dowels are all exactly the same size you should be good.  I have a system from cake stackers  http://www.cakestackers.com/

it is a very expensive system but my cakes look fantastic when I use it.  If you do weddings all the time it is a great investment... if you don't it'd be a waste of money for you.  Be sure you watch a lot of videos... Sharon Zambito has fantastic videos... can't say enough great things about them.... http://sugaredproductions.com/_catalog_85116/Instructional_DVDs

Best of luck but be sure to do your research and practice.... a wedding cake is pretty special!!!

Excellent advice Jeri :) 

jeri c said: ......... my suggestion is to purchase a level from the hardware store and use it only for cakes.  Be sure that each layer is level as you go ... use dowels, straws, sps what ever... be sure that EVERY one is EXACTLY the SAME size.  that is key in making sure the cake is level  Do not cut the dowels to fit the cake because if it is not level you are in trouble.  If the dowels are all exactly the same size you should be good.  Be sure you watch a lot of videos... Sharon Zambito has fantastic videos... can't say enough great things about them.... http://sugaredproductions.com/_catalog_85116/Instructional_DVDs

HI ,

 

Both Teneisha and Denette are right. Really good advice there from both of them> Take heed and you will do well.

I would also really not recommend traveling  with all the cakes stacked up.

Good luck.

Larissa said:

I'm going to be talking to her today about the prices and the amount of people this cake she's wanting is going to feed. I'm not sure she even has a cake topper she hasn't mentioned anything to me. I was just going to do flowers for a topper. That's also what I was debating on was delivering it stacked or not. I think I'm going to do what you suggested though doing the 14 seperate, 12 and 10 stacked, and the 8,6, and 4 stacked. The think I'm most worried about is that the whole cake is going to sink in. I know that I need to put a big dowl through all of the cakes and each one needs to be on a cake boared. But still is that going to prevent it from sinkin in? Also any good cake recipes recomended?

denette lynch said:
Make sure she knows that the price for the cake will be based on the number of servings the cake makes, in this case 208 and she has a "free" top layer for an anniversary cake.  When she realizes she has to buy more servings than needed just to spell Boston she may reconsider the design.  Also, will a 4 inch cake be a good size for her cake topper?  That can be a huge factor in sizing.  I would NOT consider delivering this cake stacked.  It will be extremely heavy.  I doubt one person could handle it and it would be really awkward for two.  Plus it puts a lot of stress on your design.  I would suggest stacking and doing final borders on-site.  Or you could bring the 14 separate, the 12 and 10 stacked and the 8,6,4 stacked and put the 3 sections together on-site.  I just had another thought.....but it all depends on how many servings she want, that is really an important factor unless price doesn't matter to her.  You could do one layer of cake in each of the sizes so each tier would be 2 inches instead of 4, then she could have a letter on each size.  Or do two letters per tier like you are thinking of.  But first, find out how many servings she wants to pay for and start the design process from there.
If she doesn't need that many cake servings, consider using styrofoam dummies for some of the layers.  That will significantly reduce the weight of the cake.  Unfortunatly (for her) it should not significantly reduce the price of the cake as you will need to spend the same amount of time decorating the dummy layers as the others plus the cost of the dummy.  Just a thought.
http://www.cakeswebake.com/photo/6-tier-wedding-cake-cecilas?contex...

Here is the link to my cake I did and the sizes of the cake I did:)))) Hope this helps
there is an excellent charting for cake sizes on wilton.com in the tier cake section.  also tutorials on assembly on cake central

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