Hi,

I have a wedding cake this weekend. The cake is 3 tiers, 12,8,6 so that the bride could get the # of servings she needed.

This cake is going to be buttercream iced, with fondant bottom border accents (like tiles).

My problem is this cake is to have seperator plates to allow for flowers between each layer.

So the 12" would have a 10" plate for the 8" cake, can I use an 8" plate ontop of the 8" cake for the 6" top layer?

Also, do you ice over your bottom plates to hide them? I do have to put fresh flowers in between so I am not sure.

Any advise would be so great!!! Thanks!

You should use the same size plate on the top of the layer as the layer above. You don't usually ice the plates, they will be covered with flowers.

If you put your 6" cake on an 8" plate, then position that 6" cake over a 2nd tier of 8", your legs of the pillars will be too close to the edge of the 8" cake and I fear you may have some "push out" on the sides of the 8" cake .... instability.

Here's a pic of one of mine where a 6" (on a 6" plate) is pillar-stacked over an 8" cake and you can see that even with this set-up, the legs are pretty close to the edge: http://www.cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1341699

If you use the scalloped edged plates, like this one http://www.cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1417180 you will have a slight edge to put borders and other decors.

Most of the time, I use smooth-edge plates and borders are placed on teh side of the cake, and not on the plate itself.

I had a thread that showed some step-by-step pics but it was lost in the Great Crash. I tried attaching a photo here but got an error message that it could not be attached (it's small enough so no idea ). If you want to see them, email me (not PM ... email) and I'll send them to you.