How to Stack a Wedding Cake

Wedding cakes are frequently several individual cakes elegantly stacked on top of each other instead of one large one layer cake. Each stacked cake layer is called a tier. Most stacked wedding cakes are three or four-tier cakes. Finished stacked wedding cakes appear as if the cakes are just set on top of each other. This is not the case because if they were the cakes would crumble under the weight above it. Instead wedding cakes are stacked in a way that offers support to the layer below.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• 4 wooden dowels per cake layer except for the top layer
• Cake board for each layer
• Icing
• Craft knife

How to Stack a Wedding Cake

1. 
   Cakeboards

   Place the largest cake board on the work surface. Put a bit of icing on the center of the cake board and place the biggest cake layer on the board. The icing will hold it in place.

2. Mark the diameter of the second layer on the top of the first bottom layer already placed on the large cake board. Use a toothpick to make a small mark on the bottom layer where the dowels will go. Imagine a square inside the measured diameter and place the markings at the four corners of the imagined square

3. Push a wooden dowel through one marking on the bottom cake through the bottom cake until the dowel reaches the cake board base. Mark on the dowel with a pencil the height of the bottom cake. Take the dowel out of the cake.

4. Cut the removed dowel off at the pencil mark height measurement with the craft knife. Repeat measuring the bottom cake layer height, marking with pencil and cutting the remaining three dowels so that the end result is of all four dowels being the same length according to the height of the bottom cake.

5. 
   Doweled cake layers

   Push the cut dowels back into the cake where the bottom layer has the holes from measure the dowels. Leave the dowels in the cake and place the next largest cake board on the work surface.

6. Add the dab of icing and place the next cake layer on top of the new cake board. Repeat the measuring and dowel cutting process once with the next layer if the cake is a four-tiered cake. If it is a three-layer cake, stack all the layers together and decorate the cake. The very last layer, no matter how many tiers is not measured because it is the final layer.

Tips & Warnings

• Do the layers separately before stacking the cake to avoid damaging the prior layer The first cake board can be a little larger than the bottom layer of cake. The rest of the layers need cake boards the exact size of its layer. Otherwise you will have cake boards showing on the previous layer.
• Don't use small thin dowels with very large heavy cake layers or the cake could collapse without enough support. Adjust the size of the cake dowels to the size and weight of the cake.

Resources

• Tiered Cake Construction methods
• Step by Step Guide to Baking and Decorating a Wedding Cake

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