I was just wondering how everyone works with cake boards. I buy 8 inch cake circles for 8 inch cakes but the cakes always end up smaller that the board so then I trim it to fit the cake and then cover it with wax paper, and all of this is such a pain I am wondering if this is normal for everyone, I know there are premade boards with a wax coating do those work well? I don't have access to them unless I order online. Does everyone trim there board right to the cake or leave room for icing and fondant too. I have just wondered how everyone uses them?
thanks

I trim the board right to the cake.

I put the wax paper on the board then place the cake on it. Then I use my kitchen scissors to cut around it.

Actually, I use a board one size larger than my cake and cover it with food grade, decorative paper (or wrapping paper and clear contact paper). That way I have plenty of room for a pretty border and its easy for the client to move the cake in and out of the box as needed. I only trim right to the cake on stacked layers.

I don't trim my boards/cake circles. I like to use the little extra ledge as a guide to lay the icing or ganache against. You set your scaper up against it and turn the turntable while scraping off the excess giving you nice, straight, smooth and even sides (I used to trim them before, but I found that it makes it hard to get even, straight sides). Sometimes I use boards up to 1" larger. I then, cover the cake in Fondant, cut off any excess, smooth out the bottom edges and then stack these directly onto another cake or onto a larger, base board. My base boards are approximately 4" larger than the cake.