My next tip is to stencil the tiers before you stack them. If you want the design at the top of the cake you can raise the cake by placing cake boards/drums under the cake until you get the perfect height. That's a good reason to keep cardboard singles for just the right height. Don't forget to use shelf liner/grip so the doesn't slip when you are stenciling. When doing the cake pictured, I saved the bottom tier until last and then I had to trim the "extra" off the bottom so that it could be flush. I think the hardest part of this cake was the caulking the tiers so that there was no borders. I took out some of the stenciling, but I couldn't help it. The very best idea is to talk the customer into a ribbon border (fondant or real). It gives you lots of material to hide the union of the tiers.
Closeup of Stencil... It adds so much detail and texture! |
Just remember that every cake is going to have a backside. Seams won't match up perfectly. Just blend and love on it so that it's not so apparent. That's all you can do, so don't worry about it. It's just cake :)
Don't forget about the height. Lots of stencils are only 4" tall and I make 5" tall or taller cakes. Luckily some stencils are taller, so focus on those to buy if you make tall tiers too! If you really want to use a skinny stencil, allow for the width of your ribbon border and measure. Cut the cake shorter so that the stencil isn't a weird band looking thing, unless that's the look you are going for :)
One note about the cake featured above. When I got to the venue, the "florist" left me a bucket of flowers the looked like the trash at the bottom of the boxes. Real Junk! I had to make it work but I don't have to be happy about it. The poppies were squished and mostly closed. The blue things were prickly! Sorry, had to get that jewel off my chest.
Do you have any tips on cake stenciling? Please share them with us in the comments so we can all be better decorators!
Wow - it is perfect. I still don't know how you stack your buttercream cakes so perfectly: seamfree, perfectly centered and so level.
ReplyDeleteIts perfect wedding cake for me, hopefully soon I can have this in My wedding :)
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