Making my first 3 tiered cake.

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Permalink Reply by Deah on December 2, 2010 at 8:42am

You can transport a stacked 3 tier as long as your structure is sound. I'm not familiar with mudcake but isn't it denser than regular cake - so it has more weight, right? If so, you will need to use dowels (bubble straws can be used on lighter cakes). The number will depend on the size of your tiers. Then, when it is completely assembled you need to run one long dowel from the top to the bottom. You do that by sharpening your dowel and gently hammering it through your cardboard separators.

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Permalink Reply by Jackie N on December 2, 2010 at 1:30pm

Each cake should be on a sturdy cake board, supported by the skewers/dowels. I stack my cakes, then tap a long, sharpened dowel down thru all three tiers and into the thick foamcore baseboard. That works very well. If you have the room, refrigerate the finished, assembled cake overnight or several hours before delivery. The firmed frosting will make delivery less stressful! :)

Last month I had a four-tier that I did, and was VERY uncertain about how it would travel. I used two dowels down thru the center just to make sure it made the trip! Well, the cake seemed like it was 'jiggling" more than I thought it should and was nervous the entire way....shouldn't have worried. The cake was SO secure that the caterer could barely get the dowels out when he was ready to cut the cake! LOL

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Permalink Reply by Eileen S on December 2, 2010 at 8:46pm

I know I'm a radical, but rather than tapping a dowel down the middle, I do it a little differently. I make sure my cake rounds for my upper tiers have a hole in the center before I place the cake on it. Then I place a thick skewer in the bottom layer dead center with the point up, then place the tiers over the skewer. It's worked well so far! Make sure you measure the height of your cakes before cutting your skewer to length and placing so it doesn't poke through the top of the cake.

I've found this to work really nicely because since my holes are in the dead middle of the cake rounds, when stacked, they are even all the way around.

And it should go without saying that the bottom tiers are dowelled as well to support the weight of the stacked cakes in addition to the skewer.

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Permalink Reply by jeri c on December 3, 2010 at 12:15am

This is really just a preferance thing I believe. I have done it both ways.... A lot of cakes I do have to travel several miles so those, I do use the dowels in each tier and then stack on site.... or I use my cake stackers system which is so sturdy you can turn the cake on it's side and nothing moves... found out the hard way when we almost dropped a cake this summer after my back surgery and you could not tell it at all.
And I have also stacked the cake and ran the dowl clear through... the cake in my album for Amanda and Brian was delivered a 35 minute drive... not too far... and it was all stacked and a dowel through it and it traveled fine... I did put the flowers in place AFTER I arrived at the venue though.
It is nice having the cake all stacked ahead of time... less stress on delivery!!!

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Permalink Reply by Lalita D'silva on December 3, 2010 at 2:31am

There are two kinds of tiered cakes-- one separated by pillars, and the other placed directly on the other without pillars. In both cases, it is necessary to insert dowel pins in the cakes to form a support. Especially if you are considering baking a mud cake which has rather dense texture and is heavy.

In either case it necessary to insert dowel pins in the supporting cake.The pins do not have to be very thick ( between 1/8 to 1/4 of an inch.)

1. The pins should be placed in the centre of the pillar position. So after you have decided where your pillars go, mark the spot and then insert the dowel pin in there.

2. It very important that all four pins should be of the exact height. Find the height of the cake at the lowest pillar position and cut the pins to that height. This has to be done for the bottom and middle cake.

If you are using pillars, then it is strongly recommended that you fix the pillars on an acrylic plate on the top. In this way there is no way your cake will topple over. Place the pillars on the dowel pins.

If you are placing the cakes directly one over the other, after you have covered the bottom cake with fondant and smoothened the cake, mark the pin positions , about 1 inch inside the circumference of the next cake.--Place the next cake on a thin acrylic circle or stiff card board, the same size as the base area of this cake. After you have covered this cake carefully lift the cake and place it on the pins inserted in the bottom cake. Centralize the cake and do the same for the top (third) cake.

Put a border where the cakes meet.
Transporting this cake ::It is not practical to transport these cakes separately, as assembling takes some time and in the process, finger marks might appear on the cakes. So it is advisable to assemble it and carry it to the venue -- you may require some heavy weight assistants !!!!"

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Permalink Reply by Frostine on December 3, 2010 at 9:00am

I have a post with pictures that might help you. http://www.thatreallyfrostsme.com/2010/05/stacking-tiered-cake.html I use dowels to support the tiers and one dowel down the center. It's always amazing to me how much the center dowel adds to the stability. Good luck with your cake.

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