I need to plan a 4 tier square wedding cake where each tier is turned slightly from the tier below. I notice some cakes are done very well and some cakes the corners are hanging off the cake! I would like to avoid that. What sizes of cakes would you recommend so this does not happen? should their be a 4" difference rather than a 2" difference?
Hi,
just make sure the tier isn't bigger than your lower one.
Measure each tier from corner to corner, that number should be smaller than the size of the pan of the cake that is underneath.
I made one with 11 9 7 and 5 inches tiers, and I think it wasn't pretty at all (take a look at my pics)
.
I would make the diference 4".
Hope it makes sence
Unfortunately, when I did this recently, I had to play with the sizes...physically. I found that a larger difference in pan size for the larger tiers was best, while a 2" difference on the smaller sizes worked just fine. The cake I did was 14, 9, 6, 4 (in my photos), though they were completely offset...at a 90 degree angle. Not sure if that was what you are looking for.
I need to plan a 4 tier square wedding cake where each tier is turned slightly from the tier below.
How many servings are needed?
If you aren't offsetting completely opposite from the other tiers, but rather slightly turned from the others (stair-stepped design), you could use whichever size smaller pans you'd like depending on how gradual you'd like them to turn or not.
should their be a 4" difference rather than a 2" difference?
If you are offsetting completely, sometimes 2-4" difference still isn't enough. Again, it depends of the number of servings that are required to figure out the sizes for a 4-tier cake. I'm happy to help with more information about the serving goals.
CWR41 - she wants 200 servings...4 tier. I think 4" offset in layers is best with a 10 degree rotation. (I work with CAD so I was able to draw this and rotate and see how they would stack) But no matter what I do, i cant seem to get a 4 tier cake that serves 200. It is either way over or way under. Of course I would rather just be over, but if it is 250 servings instead of 200 is it appropriate to charge for the extra 50 that she didnt want? sometimes the simplest cakes give me the biggest headaches!
A 4-8-12-16 will give you 224 servings according to a standard 1x2x4 serving size. I played around with the 10 degree rotation on each tier and it seemed to work just fine. There was room to rotate more if you wanted. And yes, I charge the bride for the total number the cake actually serves, not the total number of servings she wanted. I explain to my brides what's possible with the various shapes and that I charge by the number of standard servings the cake has, not the number of pieces they actually cut it into.
Hope this helps!
CWR41 - she wants 200 servings...4 tier. I think 4" offset in layers is best with a 10 degree rotation. (I work with CAD so I was able to draw this and rotate and see how they would stack) But no matter what I do, i cant seem to get a 4 tier cake that serves 200. It is either way over or way under. Of course I would rather just be over, but if it is 250 servings instead of 200 is it appropriate to charge for the extra 50 that she didnt want? sometimes the simplest cakes give me the biggest headaches!
It'd be more appropriate than you giving it to her. I would show the b-t-b the design and let her decide if she'd like to go for the smaller number of servings or the larger. Show her the price difference too.
(I don't know if you offer them or not, but is a kitchen cake an option to make up the servings? Maybe you could give her a quote using the smaller main cake along with a kitchen cake as a third option).
CWR41 - she wants 200 servings...4 tier. I think 4" offset in layers is best with a 10 degree rotation. (I work with CAD so I was able to draw this and rotate and see how they would stack) But no matter what I do, i cant seem to get a 4 tier cake that serves 200. It is either way over or way under. Of course I would rather just be over, but if it is 250 servings instead of 200 is it appropriate to charge for the extra 50 that she didnt want? sometimes the simplest cakes give me the biggest headaches!
Glad to hear you have a CAD drawing for a visual, and I understand your dilema. It doesn't sound like you'll be able to go with 4" differences in cake sizes... do you think 2" will give you the degree of rotation that you're looking for in the gradual stairstep design?
You might consider 14 x 12 x 10 x 8 = 220/252 (first number served, second number including top anniversary tier). And yes, it's appropriate to charge for the total servings received. HTH.
I get 240 servings as well with the 4-8-12-16 but i like the 4" offest better i think. you know i have played and played with this and had yet to come up with this combination i guess because i do not have a4 " pan! lol. but that is easy enough to cut down. sometimes i just need someone to make a decision for me i guess! thanks you guys for all your help!
fun with math.
take the side measurement of a square pan and multiply by 1.3 to get the diagonal. (That's close enough for cake computations, although not strictly speaking exact.)
So, if you have a 6" tier on top, and you want to have it sit on a cake below, without the edges hanging over and so that the diagonal of the top tier is sitting across the bottom cake, the bottom cake needs to be (do the math while we pause) . . . 8". (6 X 1.3 = 7.8, round up to standard cake pan size.)
An 8" tier will need to sit on an 11" tier, again rounding up to standard pan sizes.
A 12" tier will need to sit on a 16" tier, again rounding up to standard pan sizes.
That's a lot of cake!
thanks! I think I like CAD drawings more than math! lol. but thank you so much all of you!
I know your bride wanted slightly offset, but if anyone else is interested in completely offset, here are the correct right angle measurements:
4" 5.66
5" 7.07
6" 8.49
7" 9.9
8" 11.31
9" 12.73
10" 14.14
11" 15.56
12" 16.97
13" 18.38
14" 19.8
15" 21.21
16" 22.63
17" 24.04
18" 25.46
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