Hello Everyone,

I made my first wedding cake two weeks ago, and I had a problem with the single plate system. When I pressed the legs into the cake the plate bowed. No matter what I did the plate would not sit flat and left a gap between tiers. I had to fill buttercream between the cake board and SPS plate to stabilize the tiers and then cover the gap with a ribbon of fondant. Did I do something wrong? I followed the instructions for the SPS that I found here at Cake Central, but am I missing something?


Thank you in advance,
DesignerWoman

Did you need to trim the legs? Were they taller than the cake tier?

Yes, I made sure my legs were the same height as the cake tiers.

I'm not a SPS expert, but I cut my legs just slightly shorter than the height of the tier.

I know you said you follow the directions on here, but I'm going to ask anyways; Did you pop off the rings on the plate?

Did you remember to poke a little hole in the center of the cardboard circle?

The same think happened to me. I usually use the clear SPS plates, but this was a square cake and the place I order from only had the square plates in white. The white plate was no where near as stable as the clear. It started flexing as soon as I tried to press the legs into the cake. Thank goodness I had a ribbon boarder so I could hide it a little!

Huh - all my plates are white, I need to look into clear ones.

Yup, I poped the rings off and I poked the hole in the boards, I'm stumped on what went wrong.

silverc are the clear ones that much thicker then the white ones?

If your tier was level, and you cut the legs equally to the top of the tier - I'm not sure why there was a gap. Sorry - I'm sure someone else will have and idea.

I tried the square plates as well today and it didn't work out for the wedding cake I was doing. I heard putting double sided carpet tape on the plate would secure the cardboard the cake was sitting on, but the tape didn't stick to the cardboard or sit level. I think the tape didn't stick because there may have been frosting or grease from the buttercream on it after handling it too much. Any suggestions?

If you put the little hole in the cardboard & it "pops" in place it should hold it, but I have used melted chocolate before, and that worked well. (almost to well - I did have a hard time removing one once)

The clear plates I have are stronger than the white ones. I can bend the white plates with very little effort, but the clear plates don't bend much at all.

Where did you find the clear plates?

I order the clear plates from fondant source dot com. They are the cheapest place I have found, and if you enter cakecentral as the coupon code at checkout you get 10% off the total order.

Thanks, I love the white ones so I am going to try the clear!!!

Hmmm . . .I have had a few plates bow a bit, but the weight of the cake sitting on them straightened them out. If there was a gap between the plate and the cake, then the legs were too tall/cake too short. I've never tried the clear plates!

I might need to try the clear ones and see if they work better then the white ones.

Anyone know where I can order the clear SPS that will ship to Canada?