I once made the decision to create a tiered cake for my anniversary.
“Well, I think I know how to make a tiered cake…how hard can it be?” my ignorant head said. Layer the smaller one over the larger one!
We learned our lessons! My top tier tipped quite a little in the process, perhaps slamming a good centimeter into my base tier!
I created it as a testing cake for fun, and my coworkers didn’t mind how uneven it appeared when I brought it to work that day. I might have contributed to that by decorating it with funky Cadbury eggs and chocolate candy.
Let’s discus some easy steps that I followed for making my anniversary cake.
What is the ideal cake type?
Although a denser cake is a fantastic option, it need not be your sole one. If you bake your layers thick enough, you may make a fluffier cake recipe and still stack it.
This simple one-bowl vanilla cake recipe is one of my favorite cake stacking recipes. Although it is a bit denser, the flavor is excellent and it stacks really well! The recipe card that follows contains this recipe.
If you’re a beginner at stacking two tier cakes, I would say start with the vanilla recipe!
Here’s How You Can Make Tiered Anniversary Cakes
Setting Up the Measurements
Starting at the bottom, the cake measures 12″, 9″, and 6″. Naturally, you can utilize different cake sizes based on the specifications.
Since a multi-tiered cake will weigh a lot, it needs a strong foundation. For the base, I often use a cake drum that is 1/2″ thick. Using a board that has been shaped and covered with cake foil is an additional choice.
Make sure that whatever you decide to use is safe for food and sturdy enough to hold the cake’s weight.
Frosting
As usual, fill and frost the largest cake after placing it on the cake drum. Put it in the refrigerator to cool. A cold cake with hard icing is easier to work with than one with soft frosting.
Keep in mind that not all of your cakes need to be the same height! The white cake is just around 3 inches tall, whereas the pink cake is about 5 inches.
Varying the heights of each cake might occasionally be a pleasant touch. At the end, you’ll see that this design is very vibrant and dramatic, and the various heights truly enhance the image.
You could decide to make each cake the same height for a more conventional style.
Both regular and tall cake dimensions are included in the conversation table for my recipe for perfect chocolate cake. Your cakes will be the same height, either tall or standard, regardless of their width.
If the cake board is visible at the bottom of the cake, as it is on these, that’s okay. I’ll demonstrate for you how to hide that while stacking.
Solidifying
Place each cake back in the refrigerator to cool and solidify the icing after you’re done.
Usually, I just make an educated guess as to where the cake will go. To be more exact, however, take another round or pan of cardboard cake that is the same size as the next tier to be placed on top. Put it anywhere the cake will be placed, or in the center of it. Using a knife or toothpick, lightly trace the outline.
Dowelling The Cake
Using a plastic dowel, insert it inside the cake’s markings. Use your thumb to mark the cake’s height, then remove the dowel, mark with a pen, and cut.
When cutting the other dowels, use that dowel as a reference. Four plastic dowels were utilized by me. I would put roughly six wooden dowels if I were using them.
Every subsequent cake that is placed on top must also rest on a cake board. These cake boards are necessary between cakes because they strengthen the cakes’ structure. The dowels will support this as well.
For this, I typically use a board that is thinner—roughly 1/8″ thick.
Setting Up the Tiers
Therefore, set the second tier (9″ cake) on an identically sized cardboard cake circle. Chill, fill, and frost. Repeat with the smaller cake (6″) that will be placed on top.
For the 9″ cake, repeat the dowelling procedure. There is no need to hold anything on top of the topmost cake, therefore you don’t need to add a dowel. However, you might need to do so if you have heavy figurines or a anniversary cake topper.
Decorate the cake as desired.
Know The Cake Size You Need
You need two cakes (made up of layers) in two different sizes if you want a two-tier cake. Depending on how large you cut the slices, the typical size is a 6′′ cake piled on top of an 8′′ cake, and it serves roughly 40–50 people.
Since stacked cakes are taller than conventional cakes, you may cut the pieces thinner and still have a delicious piece of cake, even though it might not seem like it can feed a lot of people.
Because it’s so tall, I occasionally cut a slice and then cut it in two to serve.
