Wedding Cake Assembly

I have just made a three tier wedding cake and the top tier is made up of a 9" fruit cake with a 6" heart shaped cake on top. The bottom two tiers went on the stand perfectly but when I put the top tier on the whole stand wobbled and doesn't seem very safe. I have been told that the top tier is not made for heavy cakes. Any suggestions please. Thanks

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Answer:

My understanding is that you're trying to put a 9" fruit cake with a 6" heart shaped cake on the top tier of a wedding cake and that you're using a stand.

I'm assuming this is a metal stand. If this is the case then it seems that you are overloading the cake stand. The bottom tier should really be the heaviest tier, but in your case, your top tier is as you have two cakes on this tier (the fruit and heart shaped cake).

Is there anyway that you could remove the heart shaped cake from the fruit cake? Perhaps you could replace it with a cake topper, or a replica of the heart shaped cake made from styrofoam or other lightweight material? Alternatively, you could look to change your cake stand. Arcylic cake stands are quite sturdy and may hold the weight better than a metal stand. You can see these types of cake stands on Cakes Galore website.

 

Another way to tier the cakes is to stack them on top of one another. If you're using sponge cakes as your lower cakes, you'd need to be very careful about the weight though and it may not be suitable. Usually cakes are stacked using dowels through the cake to support the next layer which sits on a cardboard base. There are more details of stacking wedding cakes in this article: How Do I Assemble A Three Tier Cake (note the use of thick cardboard to hold the weight between the layers!)

Best of the luck and enjoy the wedding!

Image credits:
Wedding cake: © Eric Limon | dreamstime.com