| Helpful Hints |
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| Delivery Options |
| I enjoy making wedding and specialty cakes for people but there are times that I have to decline due to distance or scheduling conflicts with the delivery. In most cases with a little planning, I can make a cake that can be delivered and set up by you. Below are some pictures of cakes made in such a way that anyone can transport and setup. As a side benefit, you also save my delivery charges. |
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As you can see, each of these cakes have their tiers separated by columns. Each tier of cake will be placed in a separate box for delivery. Once you reach the site of your reception, all you have to do is un-box each tier and stack each layer on top of the other. At the bottom of this page I will show you how to assemble one of these cakes. |
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| In the picture above you see the bottom tier of the cake along with the hardware used to support the other tiers of cake. | The four columns are pushed into the cake. The round plate you see to the left is the under side of a support plate that will be affixed to the bottom of the second tier cake. Notice the four feet in the plate that will fit into the top of the columns. | Here is the finished stacked cake. All you have to do us un-box the tiers and stack them on top of each other. This cake was designed with a 1" separation between layers which is large enough to place small flowers for added decorations. A separation of 3" is possible for larger design elements. |
| Small Stacked Cakes | ||
| If columns are not what you are looking for, I also will stack small three tier buttercream and Fondant cakes for pickup. Cakes with fondant icing are more resilient and resist cracking and wrinkling better than buttercream iced cakes. Both types of cakes require a completely flat cool surface to sit on during the trip. Transporting any cakes in the trunk during the summer months is a recipe for disaster. The warm temperatures make the icing and cake soft and more susceptible to cracking and in severe cases even sliding off the base board. | ||
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Creating a solid support structure is important when building a stacked cake. All stacked cakes that are to be picked up by my customers will have a dowel rod driven from the top of the cake down into the base board in addition to the normal support structures. This reduces the chance of tiers sliding . |  |
| Buttercream 3 tier Wedding Cake | Fondant 3 tier Wedding Cake | |
| Cake Construction 101 |
Cake construction is one of the biggest reasons why your dream cake can turn into a desert nightmare. I can not tell you the number of cakes I have seen slowly lean, then droop and then fall apart. This happens a lot when people have friends make their grooms or wedding cakes but I have seen it happen to professionally created cakes from licensed bakeries. A soft moist cake is structurally not designed to be self supporting over 6 inches(rule of thumb). If you want your cake to be taller than this, a support structure is required. My standard way of supporting tiered cakes is to cut and insert dowel rods into each tier. The dowel rods will support the cake board that is under every tier of cake. This design channels most of the weight of the cake to the cake boards and dowel rods and off of the cake. If you do not do this your cake will compress, lean and then if the fates are against you, your cake will fall. p.s. There is a really funny site called Cake Wrecks where the real life and cakes comes together in a hilarious way. |
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