Stacking

One thing I learned the hard way was to cut all your supports the same exact height. Find the tallest point on your lower tier and cut the rest that same height. If the lower tier wasn’t very level, you may have to use a border to cover up the gap on the lower part. Also, if you can do your best to be sure that very bottom tier is as perfectly level as possible on top, then that will make stacking the rest a lot easier.

Try the SPS system. I’ve used it on the few wedding cakes I’ve done and they’ve been the most level and straight standing cakes I’ve done.

Get the stacking video by Sharon Zambito! It will change your life! Seriously! The cake in my profile pic was the first I stacked her way. Totally an improvement on what I used to do.

http://www.sugaredproductions.com/product/Successful-Stacking-DVD/

We measure and cut the first support, then use that support as the metric to cut the rest.

Laura did a great video on stacking http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bawdeAmPbr4

Two words, Susan Zambito. Her video on stacking cakes is the best!

Here is how I do it:

Make sure your cake is completely level to start with, because that will make this whole process so much easier. If your cake is not level, you need to find the highest part of your cake and use that as your starting point. Insert a bubble tea straw into the cake and mark it with an edible food marker, where it meets the top of the cake meets the straw. I then cut slightly below this line, maybe 1 or 2mm. Use this straw to mark the rest of your straws. Insert your straws into the cake – I normally do 4 for really small cakes and up to 8 for larger cakes (I don’t use a straw in the middle, as I use a central dowel right through all of the cakes).
I then take some ganache and run a ring of that round each straw and then put the next tier on top.
Now, assuming your cake was level to start with then there should be either no gap between the cakes at all, or a very minimal gap. If however your cake was not level, then you’ll have to mask that with either a ribbon or some royal icing the same colour as your fondant or pearls etc.

Bubble tea straws are cheap, easy to cut and can hold multiple tiers without any drama what so ever. The ganache, stops the cakes from budging, but you can also use royal icing.

I love this method, but then it’s the only option available to me really as I live in the UK and we don’t have access to all these fabby stacking systems.

Edna De la Cruz is my rock star!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvaCSW78ybc