Stacking cakes sometimes requires a bit of engineering. Imagine working for days on a beautiful wedding cake, only to have it collapse into itself due to a structural problem prior to delivery. Or worse yet, have it collapse on the bride and groom when they are cutting into it!!! These are the nightmares of cake decorators!
Learning to stack a three tiered wedding cake is actually quite simple, and learning how to do it is integral to cake decorating. In my video you will see me use a total of 7 wooden support rods. You can use more if you are worried about your cake collapsing, but being that I’ve stacked enough cakes with this exact type of cake, I wasn’t worried and knew that I didn’t need more support. BUT, that being said, if this is new to you or you are using a light, fluffy cake (or a box mix) you may want to have 3-5 support rods in the bottom tier. Three in the middle layer should remain to be suffice.
The rod that goes through the top tier, all the way to the bottom tier anchors the three layers of the cake together. This helps prevent slippage of any of the tiers, keeps the cake upright in it’s stacked position and will help with stability when transporting.
This way of stacking can also be applied to any cake that is tiered, be it two, four or more layers. You will just require longer rods, and many more of them! The more tiers the cake, the more support you will want the base to have as it will be bearing more weight at the bottom.