Hi everyone,

I am doing a friend's brother's reception cake for this saturday. They have already had a big ceremony and reception, this saturday's event is more for the people that couldn't go overseas for the wedding, so they are happy for it to be a low-key, "simple" cake. However, the cakes I have all done so far have either been 1-tier, or if more than 1 tier, it's been fruit cake. This time it will be a 2 tier cake (chocolate and plain). The bottom tier will be chocolate, the top will be plain vanilla cake, and the cake that will be sreved will just be ordinary chocolate and vanilla sheet cakes. The sheet cakes are not a problem. But I am wondering what kind of recipe is best to use for the cakes? Does the bottom tier need to be a heavy kind of cake to be nice and sturdy? Does the top tier need to be light? Sorry to ask such stupid questions, I have been Googling all day and can't get quite the answer I'm after - everyone is just trying to sell their products!!!!

Cheers,

Kate

As long as you have a decent support structure you can use any type of cake - there is a ton of info on supports here - dowels, sps etc if you are not sure what to use.

I love WASC(in the recipes section) - it is denser and I have used chocolate cake mix in place of vanilla/white and it works great! But Bunsen is right, as long as it is supported properly you would be fine.

If you've used fruit cake previously, might I guess that you're not in the U.S.

I would recommend either sponge or mud cakes for your tiers. And since mud is usually chocolate have that as the bottom tier.

Here's an everything you need to know to make, decorate and assemble tiered/stacked/wedding cakes:

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

The above superthread has popular CC recipes for crusting American buttercreams, several types of fondant and doctored cake mix (WASC and other flavor variations) - and so much!

You'd probably be interested in the "so much more" would includes a link to illustrated common cake support systems with complete & accurate details.

Here's a link to mud cake recipes:

http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopicp-3683823.html#3683823

Victoria sponge cake recipe, hints & tips:

http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-644743-.html

http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-54890-.html

Other sponge cake recipes:

http://tinyurl.com/38sgen

http://tinyurl.com/yceockn

HTH

Jan - you're awesome!

You're too kind Renae.