I have a question for you and was hoping I could get your advice. I am making a tiered cake tomorrow and was planning on having the cake on a round 10"cake board covered in fondant. The tiered cake will be an 8" and 6" round, fondant covered cake. Should I have the 8" cake on it's own 8" round cake board and then transfer it (the cake & it's board) to the 10" fondant covered board and keep the 8"cake board under the cake still? Or should I just cover the cake with fondant while it's on the fondant covered board? (Did that make sense? Lol)

I was also wondering if you always ice your cakes with your butter cream and then cover with fondant, or have you ever ice your cake with something like a cream cheese frosting and then cover with fondant?

Thanks!

I hope that I am understanding you correctly. Yes that 8 in cake needs to be on it's own board. If not the cake will possibly sink into the 10 in one. I would have each cake on it's own board and cover them individually and use some sort of support system such as sps or dowel rods or boba tea straws between the 8 and 10 cake. I also would transfer them to the covered board after you have covered them in fondant. It lessens the chance that you will mess up your freshly fondant covered board. Also you can ice your cake in cream cheese but you would refrigerate it prior to and after covering it in fondant. Prior to, helps your fondant to not have bumps and wrinkles, etc. and after because cream cheese icing needs to be refrigerated. HTH

ETA: I am sorry I must have been half sleep reading the post In any case yes the 6 in should be on it's own board and the 8 in too.

I find that it looks neater if I decorate the cake on my turntable and then put it on the presentation board, As for icing underneath, I've used both depending on what the person wants. As long as it's a frosting that firms up like buttercream or cream cheese or ganache, you're fine. Obviously, a whipped frosting or whipped cream wouldn't work because it'll collapse and the gas bubbles will form under the fondant.

I decorate my bottom layer directly on the cake drum and then cover the exposed portion with fondant. It saves me a board and some fondant.

As for the other question, I have used choco buttercream and cream cheese buttercream under fondant without issue.

Sounds like a plan! Yes, you could use the same size board under each of your 6" and 8" tiers (each on its own board), and transfer to your drum or STURDY fondant-covered base board (don't use only one corrugated circle.)

I would use a 12" base board (or minimum of 4 inches larger than base cakes), to have plenty of decorating space for borders, etc., and easier handling, otherwise there won't be much of your fondant covering showing.

I've never covered the board with fondant, but have seen it done and I love how it looks, just not sure how it's done.
If you set your cake down first (which totally makes sense so as to not use too much fondant) and lay the fondant around the bottom tier, what's the easiest way to make sure your meaurements are correct? What is the process of covering the board with fondant, please?
TIA

I know some decorators cover their board first: some cut out a circle in the center, the size of the bottom tier....others leave the board fully covered.

Another method would be to roll out your fondant large enough to cover the cake PLUS the width of the board. Smear a bit of piping gel or shortening on the board edges, then cover you cake/board with fondant. Once the cake and board are covered, use a pizza cutter to carefully cut around the base of the cake. Separating the cake fondant from the board fondant makes cutting/serving easier.

HTH

Each cake sits on it's own board. I cover my cake drum with fondant using water to adhere it. I cut a circle out of the center, use Elmers glue and place my cake down on the drum.

Thanks all, your advice helped a lot! The cake worked out perfectly! The only glitch I had was glueing the cake board to the dummy. I used elmers glue to glue it to the dummy, but the glue just wouldn't dry. So I replaced it with another cake board and smeared bc on it and that did the trick.

Icing a dummy cake is kinda a pain, it's so light it doesn't stay in place. I found that tricky. Any tips to icing a cake dummy?