I have a wedding cake to make in 2 weeks and the bride has decided she wants the cakes stacked. They were suppose to be seperate. I have never stacked cakes using pillars before.

First, I have the pillars that push down into the cake. They are suppose to touch the plate the cake is sitting on, right?

Second, I am making 8,12,and 16 inch round cakes. So I got 8,12, and 16 inch round plates to put them on. But the cakes are going to just fit on the plate. How can I add the bottom border? which is just dots so its not much. I didn't want the plates to show, but should I have bought a size bigger plates?

Thanks,
Amanda

You should always put a cake on plates at are at least 2" larger than your cakes. This allows room for your bottom border.

I always use the columns that you push into the bottom plate or I use hidden columns. I perfer not to use dowel rods for support. I have seen to many cakes collaspe when I was in the photography business.

I haven'y done the pillars yet but it sounds right to me. As far as the cake plates go, if you want the plate to be exactly the same size as the cake of coarse you would get the same size board for it. If you want a borderon the bottom of the cake, use a board that is 1"-2" larger than the round it self. 1" if you want the cake, border and no board showing, and 2" larger if you want the cake a border and a little holding room on the sides. Although, you said you don't want the board to show and you got the same size boards as the rounds, I would go light on the icing on the side of the cake and then do the border big enough to cover the board; this way you don't have border falling off the side of the cake. Good luck.

P.S. There's a how-to on pillars in the "Articals" section of this site.

For the stacked cakes with hidden pillars it's ok to use the same size plates as cake. That way the plate is hidden when stacked. The base plate should be a couple inches bigger than the cake to allow for the border.

Good Luck with the up coming wedding cake - it will be GREAT!

I LOVE the hidden pillars - I WON'T use anything else