I made a wedding cake for the bakery I work at today, it was similar to Flower Show featured in the 2008 yearbook, also used that stand. The top tier was fine. The middle tier was carrot cake with cream cheese filling, the bottom tier was a marble cake with chocolate filling, They were all iced in buttercream. The carrot cake leaned very badly and the bottom tier was starting to. I doweled both cakes. The cream cheese filling and the chocolate filling were both commercial icings you buy in the big buckets for bakeries. I made a dam of buttercream (which I made using crisco, confect. sugar, vanilla, butter flavor... use all the time never a problem) before filling with the cream cheese or chocolate. What could have made them lean? Was it the fillings being to soft? The carrot cake just kept leaning and leaning the more the day went on. I hope it made it to its destination 2 miles away from the bakery! Please help me with this problem. I am sure there will be more cakes. The cakes did turn out nice but I am not real happy with them b/c of this.

IT sounds like a support system issue and not a type-of-cake issue. What kind of supports were used?

They were on cake boards and I used the Graceful Tiers Cake stand.

were the tops of the cake layers level? was the dam made with a stiff icing? how much filling were you using? Just tossing out suggestions

I guess I should say the cakes were more or less 3 seperate cakes, 2 layers each and placed on the 3 tiered/ level cake stand. The cakes seemed to be sliding/leaning off the bottom layer on the bottom cake and the middle cake.

yes I know what stand you are using.. but if the icin on your dam is too soft the weight of the top layer will slide... or if you put too much filling in it will slide as well... also if the layer on the bottom still is domed or not level... well you get the picture it will slide... those are things that I was asking about...

If it's leaning and you cut your own dowels, my guess would be you didn't cut them all the same length-- or the correct length, probably too short.

The icing I used for the dam was not very stiff. Maybe that was the problem. Anymore suggestions would be welcomed. Would the SPS system have helped in this case?

SPS is for stacked cakes. It would not be useful with the Graceful Tiers stand. In fact the SPS plate would be showing on the top of the tiers.

Is the stand you are talking about like this one?
http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-photo_1171300.html
If so
that is the worst item I have ever purchased, it is the most unstable thing I've ever seen. I won't use it again. I hovered over that cake because if a gnat had flown by it would have toppled. It makes a pretty presentation but if there is a next time I will get my husband to build one. If that was the stand then it wasn't your cake, and I would let the bakery know that it probably is a cake wreck waiting to happen

Jibbies

That's not Graceful Tiers.

this is the graceful tiers:
http://www.createacakeshop.com/Merchant2/graphics/00000001/307-841_m.jpg