I havent had time to do a trial cake before making my sons first bday cake like I hoped I would and Im a bit nervous about successfully making a tiered cake. Im planning on making two double tiers, a 9inch and a 6inch (or possibly a 10 inch and a 6inch). After trying a few different buttercream recipes from the recipe section, Ive decided on the Buttercream Dream recipe. Can the cake sit out at room temp with this buttercream? If so, how longovernight?

I have the wooden rods, cardboard cake boards, and a cake base. Any helpful hints for a someone making their first tiered cake? I watched few of Ednas youtube videos and I think I have the basic idea down for stacking. Is there anything else I need? How many wooden rods should go into the bottom tier (either 9inch or 10inch). Do I need just one cardboard cake board to go under the 6in tier?

My sons party is on Sunday Aug 22nd. My timeline is belowdoes this look like it should work? Any comments/advice appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Sunday Aug 15th (or Wednesday Aug 18th depending on time) bake cakes, cut them for torting, wrap in plastic wrap and freeze

Friday Aug 20th AM take cakes out of freezer, thaw (how long?), tort cakes and fill with buttercream. Wrap in plastic wrap and put ceramic tile on to help cake settle, leave for 3ish hours (I cant remember who posted this tip, but thanks!!). Should I let the cake settle at room temp or in the fridge? Is 3 hours enough time?

Friday Aug 20th PM - remove from fridge, frost cakes with a crumb coat, frost, let crust and smooth with viva paper towel, stack, refrigerate.

Sat Aug 21st remove from fridge, apply fondant decorations to cake, apply gum paste decorations to cake, leave cake at room temp in cakebox overnight.

Sun Aug 22nd Party!

Ok, now this is just me talking and others do this differently but this is what works for me. Your timeline looks great first of all...sounds like you will get it done. But when I take my cakes out of the freezer I fill and crumbcoat immediatly and then let settle on my work table for at least 3 hours to come to room temp and let any filling sploosh out during settling as well as any air/gas to escape that may cause a blow out. I don't let them thaw out before crumbcoating because a frozen cake is easier to handle and fill and crumbcoating seals in the moisture. I have tried thawing them and the tops were soggy and the cake soft and harder to stack the layers and harder to crumbcoat. Then I can do the final coating of BC or Fondant. You don't want to refridgerate since you want your cakes to be at room temp when that final coating goes on and a refridgerator can dry out your cake and your cake can absorb any fridge odors as well and cold cakes, as they come to room temp, expel air and gas in that process and can cause a BC blow out or a fondant air bubble. After the final BC or fondant coating is on you can leave your cake out for days and the inside cake will be fresh. 3 is my normal top but I've had 5 day old cake and it still be wonderful. Do no refridgerate after you put on the crumbcoat unless your house is really hot or your fillings are perishable because then you will have to deal with condensation on the surface of your cake. After that you can add whatever decorations whenever you'd like. As for stacking. You only need one cakeboard round under each tier. I use 5 dowels for staking. 4 about 1 inch inside the ring of the top tiers diameter and one in the center. Too many dowels can actually break apart a cake.

Now here's a tip I just recently found. Take an extra cakeboard round after inserting your dowels and set it on top. Then using a mini level, find out if your cake is level. If not then adjust the dowels as needed to get a level cake. Remove the extra round and stack your next tier on top. This helps you have nice level looking cakes even if the tiers themselves are off in some way.

HTH

Cat

I am in the exact same boat!! My son's 1st birthday is on the August 26th but we are having his party the same weekend as your party and I am having the same dilemma. I am also making his cake...a two tiered cake (10in and 8in) plus a 6in smash cake...Ive been researching and studying for months in preparation because I also have never made a tiered cake and have been trying to figure out the time line for baking and decorating...Ive been making a list of tools and ingredients and hopefully will be ready...

As of yesterday my plan is to bake the cakes on Wednesday and freeze (I have ready many posts that states this a great method for moist extra delicious cakes)

Make my fondant and some of the cake decorations on Thursday

Thaw, tort, fill, crumb, ice on Friday

Decorate on Saturday in time for the "party"

I am thrilled you posted this Q...Hopefully I will get great information to help edit my time line as well ) Good luck!

I'm sorry that I can't help with advice...but your timeline is just what I need....


Hope you don't mind if Icopy.....

this post was perfect! Thank you for posting and thank you catlharper for your reply!

Thank you for this post! I am going to do my first topsy turvey cake and was wondering when to do what

I have a question about a smash cake, my customer wants a two layer smash cake. My concern is not being able to add supports or even a cake board under the top layer, because she is having professional pictures taken of her child as she smashes the cake, and because of safety issues for the child if I use dowels.  Any ideas, thoughts or suggestions on this?  The cake I am making is the jumbo cupcake cake, the pans are from Wilton.