Stacking Cakes

Stacking can create tall and beautiful cakes, however without a proper support system, their stability can be questioned. This guide shows you the Sugar & Ice way to stacking your cakes perfectly every time. 

Before explaining the process there's a few important things to note: 

• Due to the nature of eggless cakes Sugar & Ice do not recommend stacking them, as an alternative to add height why not use a cake stand 
• We do not recommend stacking fruit cakes on top of sponge cakes, and not stacking any more than three sponge cakes on top of one another, sponge cakes can collapse if they have too much weight on top fo them 

• We recommend covering your cakes with marzipan and fondant the day before you wish to stack your cakes
• Dowels come in various sizes and thicknesses, ask in store for advice on which ones to choose

Ingredients:

• Two or more cakes - we recommend using cakes with at least 2" difference in size for Wedding Cakes
• Royal icing the same colour as your cakes 
• Enough marzipan and icing to cover all of your cakes (check out our icing quantities guide)

Tools:

• One drum board for the base cake - we recommend using a drum at least 2 -3" larger than the base cake
• Thin boards the same size as the top cakes
• Any tools you require to cover your cakes with marzipan and icing
• Food safe dowelling rods
• Pen to mark the dowels
• A sharp serrated knife
• Pallet knife or cake lifter

Instructions:

1.  Cover all of your cakes with icing (and marzipan if required) on top of their respective boards and set aside to form a hard outer crust overnight.
2. Take the largest cake and your first dowelling rod. Push the dowel into the cake a few inches from the outer edge and make sure it goes into the cake and touches the board
3. Using your pen, make a mark on the dowel where it meets the surface of the icing
4. Remove the dowel carefully and cut along this mark - if you twist the dowel as you remove it from the cake, it shouldn't snag the icing
5. Using your first dowel as a guide, cut two more rods if you are using rounds cakes and three more if you are using square cakes. This is the minimum number of dowels you'll need, it comes down to preference and which dowels are used - the dowels need to be the same height to keep the cake level
6. Push all of your dowels into the base cake, like the diagrams
7. Put a good amount of royal icing on top of the base cake ready to stack the next cake on top
8. Pick up the next cake on its board using your pallet knife or cake lifter and carefully place it on top of the supporting dowels and royal icing
9. Repeat this for any additional tiers
10. You can use royal icing or alternative decorations to hide the join of the two cakes