With an extra tall cake tier how should you cut and serve it? Any suggestions? Have you done this before?

Not many serving pieces will accommodate a 7" tall slice of cake LOL. Most people will divide that cake into two parts with a cake plate in the middle and dowels in the bottom half, both for ease of serving and to give stability to the tall structure. The bottom layers would compact from the weight of the upper layers and would become quite unstable. Just divide your layers into 2 stacks and place each on a separate cake board. Dowel the bottom half just like you would for separate tiers, then frost or cover as one tall cake. To serve, cut and plate the top half, remove the board once exposed, and cut the lower half. Or, slide a knife just under the board in the middle, cut around to loosen and lift off.

I was actually just wondering the same thing this morning. After reading rave reviews from this site, I made Kraft's Luscious Four-Layer Pumpkin Cake this morning. ( http://www.kraftfoods.com/kf/recipes/luscious-four-layer-pumpkin-cake-65930.aspx ) After looking at it, I thought, "How in the world do I serve that? It's huge! Separating it out using cake boards is a good idea, but wouldn't work for this one, since it just has filling but no outside icing. Phooey! Thanks for posting cocobean.

i wondered this too, i guess it means that the bottom half of each tier wouldnt have any fondant on it? apart from the very outside of the cake..though since loads of people dont like it i suppose thats no too much of a bad thing.

could this also be a way of doubling up serving sizes? like say you had a massive wedding but the bride only wanted say a three tier cake, could you just make each tier 7 inches tall and then get twice as many servings from it by dividing each tier in two seperated by the cardboard??

emlashlee, you could always use a cake board that's an inch or two smaller than the diameter of your cake. that way the icing would come up around the edge of the board, but you'd still be able to serve double the amount of servings you would without the board.

just make sure you pour half of that delicious topping on the cake before placing the cake board so that even the people that get bottom slices of cake get that yummy caramel.

What I have done in the past is use a stop board. So lets say you have a cake that is 7 inches, you have 3 layers of cake with filling to go in between each layer. I would torte those giving me 6 layers and then start: cake/fillling/cake/filling/cake, Ice the top and dowel then place a cake board(the stop board) and start again. Just like stacking a cake, but it is all the same size. Does this make sense? That way when you start cutting the cake, you cut down to the stop board and not serve 7 inch high pieces. HTH

Cathy26: yes this works for that. You would want a greater difference between tier sizes though for a "classic" look - like 6-10-14 x 6" rather than 6-8-10 x 6".

I've served a tall cake like this. (3 layers of cake and 2 layers of filling.) Didn't torte it though... I thought torting the layers would make it more difficult to serve.) I used a stainless steel fish turner to serve the cake slices. Bed Bath & Beyond sells it. It worked really well!

http://www.chinatraderonline.com/files3/2010-11/23/stainless-steel-fish-turner-1500584472.jpg

I didn't cut the slices in half..... just left them whole. But remember it's 50% more cake per slice so you need to charge more for the extra cake. Also, a tall slice like this doesn't fit on a regular dessert plate. You need an 8" plate to hold the cake.

HTH

Hi

 

I slice this cake tier all the way down and lay the 2 tall halves on a cutting board - like 2 letter D's.  Then, I cut those sections thru the 'waist' before making the other serving slices.

So, my question is... I want to make a tall cake, with a board and dowel rods in the middle for support... but I also want to cover the whole thing in fondant. But when i go to serve that... i can't just take the top cake off of the bottom cake and serve it that way, since it'll be all covered in fondant. So i guess what I'm trying to ask, how do people serve a tall cake, covered in one single piece of fondant, that has the supporting cardboard and dowels in it? Thanks, and i hope that makes sense!

 

Amanda

Acut down the cake to the board. Then cut across the fondant along the board.

AIs that with each piece?

A

No, you're just severing the fondant all around the circumference of where that top half of the large tier ends.

ASo at that point, it's business as usual, as described by previous posters. I do DB's every so often, and it's easy enough to explain once you visualize it as two completely separate tiers just reallllllly close together. :D

Wouldn't you have to put dowel rods in the top layer as well, IF you plan to have more tiers on top? Otherwise it will sink into the cake and be very unstable. 

of course. you have to look at it as AZCouture describes it. two cakes stacked on top of one another. If you're adding a 3rd layer you must dowel and support as if the cakes were different sizes. 

This is the zombie thread that won't die!