Does anybody have any pics of cakes that are tiered, but each tier is made up of only one layer (a single cake)?

My aunt wants me to make a 2-tiered cake for my uncle's birthday, but she only wants each tier to be made from one cake (There's only going to be 5 of us celebrating his birthday and she doesn't want lots of cake left over.) Personally, I think it is going to look terrible, but I am bad at visualizing things, so I thought I would ask. Maybe it can be done.

Thanks so much for your help!

I know I've seen cakes like that, and they look like a mistake, IMO.

If you only need a small cake- you could make the larger bottom tier a dummy-- then you have the look- but not all the cake.

Better idea, tmac!

Because my oven is soooo tiny here at the house we are living at temporarily baking cakes is a one at a time prospect. So the first few cakes I have posted here are all one layer (a 2" cake round) torted and filled. So they are all one cake layered with itself and some are stacked when I wanted to try staking to learn and I made a 8-6.

This is the one I am most proud of and I don't think it looks like a "mistake." While certainly not towering or massive, I think it is a nice way to go when you want to stack for design purpose, but not overwhelm your family with too much left over cake.

http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-photo_1690060.html

I did a small tiered cake for my daughter's birthday...one layer each tier (8" & 6") but I torted them and used filling. I'm not crazy about the picture because I did a crappy job with the shoe and her name bled on top of the cake, but the tier proportion is OK...it doesn't look weird... I don't think...except for the shoe...and the name. Oh well.

i don't have a 2 "tier" cake but i have a 3 "tier" and each one was one layer.

I don't care for it at all, but it gives you an idea of what it looks like.

http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=7983

Thank you. I don't have a way to get a dummy cake unless I mail order it, and for this project, I don't want to waste the money on that.

Any ideas on sizes that I could make? Would a 6 inch with a 4 inch on top look ok?

HoneyBunns, your cake is very nice! I think the three tiers looks good, especially with the design you chose.

carmijok & leily, both of your cakes are really nice! Thank you for posting them.

I was planning on torting and filling, so I think that maybe this will work out ok, after seeing all of your photos. I just want to make my aunt happy. We don't get to see her all that often. She's having surgery soon for her heart and wants to make this cake for her husband's birthday after she gets out of the hospital and I go to visit her. (I'll really be making the cake, she'll probably just sit and watch.) I didn't want to change her ideas too much because she gets upset with me when I do that, and since she will only have been out of the hospital for a few weeks, I wanted to try to make her happy.)

I made a cake a few days ago that was a tiered and used one cake back total for the two tiers. The bottom was a 9 inch and top a 6 inch, both torted and filled and i think it came out nicely. I just posted the picture of it named Hello Kitty I.

Oopps, that was supposed to say "one cake batch"

Bigger isn't always necessarily better. I do single layer tiers frequently for smaller birthday type cakes. Here are a couple of them:

http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1523163

http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1452478

I think if you keep the decorations to scale with the height of the tiers, they won't look disproportionate at all. And, juding from your photos, I have no doubt you will be able to create a beautiful single layer tiered cake.

In a pinch I use the Styrofoam in the floral department at Joanns or Michaels (the white stuff, not the green floral foam, of course)-- with a coupon of course-- I get three- and 'glue' them together with royal icing to make up for that last inch-- it usually comes out to about 3 3/4 - but that last 1/4 is made up for with butter cream, or nobody notices the small difference.

Thanks tmac for the Michaels foam option.

Monirr04 & juleebug, your cakes are both very nice! juleebug, if it's ok with you, maybe I'll just copy that fish cake of yours! My uncle is a fisherman and I was planning on doing a fishing themed cake for him! Although there will also be some fondant blue claw crabs; they retired to a house on the Chesapeake Bay. (My daughter & I are hoping we can get some fresh blue claws when go visit in a month.)

Thanks tmac670 for the tip about the foam.

Barbaranne,
I can't take credit for that design. I copied it myself from another CC member. You can see her (much better) version here:

http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1436436

in my photos i have a pic of one.