Hi
I'm making my niece's first birthday cake and it will be my first time doing tiers. I plan to remove the top tier and have that be the birthday girl's "smash" cake. What is the best way to remove the tier (it will be iced in buttercream) without completing ruining the look of the frosting and cake?
thanks!

Hi and Welcome to CC, Emmy1681.

Decoding CC acronyms:

http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-2926-.html

Everything you need to know to bake, assemble and decorate tiered/stacked/layered cakes:

http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-605188-.html

The top tier will be easy to remove since it will be on a cake board or cake plate.

For more specific help, just refer to cake assembly info in the above thread.

Look forward to seeing pics of your daughter's birthday cake!

HTH

Make sure your top tier is slightly elevated (cut dowels or whatever you use for support) from the bottom, so you can slide a spatula or cake serving knife under it, without scraping the icing on the top of the bottom tier. If you do it carefully, you won't mess up the icing on either cake!

depending on what you are going to have at the base of each tier. I use ribbon a lot to match my cakes and run that around the bottom of each tier, which allows me to leave a small space between layers so that I can lift that layer up. If not, I will sometimes use cornstarch and pat around the icing on the bottom layer where the top layer will sit on.. that helps the icing from not sticking to the top layer as you lift off. For a clean break though... I might try leaving a little space between and covering with ribbon, or a band of fondant... something like that