My Cakes Keep Leaning To The Back
Decorating By Michelle46 Updated 23 May 2011 , 1:51pm by Michelle46
My Cakes keep leaning to the back of the cake. All three tiers All My rods are cut the same size, I have each cake on a board. this keeps happening. you can only notice if you look at the cake from the side, It's really upsetting me. Please help
Purchase a small level (8" to 12") from a local hardware store (Lowe's, Home Depot, etc.) Check the level of your counter top and each tier as you stack and ice. Make sure to check in several directions.
You may want to invest in SPS because it makes a little table top even if the bottom layer is not quite level. It is really really solid and keeps my cakes from leaning.
Some times when a level is dropped - it loses it "level." I am sure that if you search online you can find hints on how to check it.
Maybe it could be your frosting (if you use buttercream). It might be too soft, causing your tiers to slightly lean or slip. If you use a thick filling that might also be a causing your cakes to shift a bit.
HTH
I had some issues with this until I started to:
1) slightly overfill my pans; 2) seriously squish my cakes after removing from oven; 3) trimming any excess from top of cake before removing from pan; 4) stacking/filling/weighting each layer, with a weight (12" tile PLUS additional weight on larger cakes)- shifting weight as necessary to level (using a level to check); 5) using a cakeboard under each and every layer.
Do not overfill your cake. You can keep things from shifting by pounding a sharpened dowel rod through your entire cake and down into a 5/8" thick foam cakeboard. If your cake was level to start with, this will keep it from going anywhere.
I agree also with using an SPS system to ensure perfect flatness when stacking multiple layers. This will ensure that you have a perfectly level cake even if each layer is not perfectly flat. By decorating/trimming the bottom edge of each layer with a border of some sort, small imperfections will not be seen.
I firmly believe that you can't do a good enough job of decorating to make up for the care and detail needed in the baking and building/engineering part of the process...believe me, I learned that the hard way
Thanks so much for all the advice. I'm new to this can you please tell me what SPS is? Thank You
I have had a similair problem. Stacked cakes look fine from the front but look like the frosting is slanted out from the side view. I started using the wider hollow plastic Wilton dowel rods instead of the solid wooden dowels and my cakes have improved.
SPS is used instead of dowels. There is a plastic plate that you insert 4 legs into and you push the entire piece into the bottom tier. Then you place the top tier onto the plate. There are a couple of ways to do it. The easiest way is to make sure each tier is exactly 4 inches tall otherwise you have to cut the legs. Wilton has something similar but I'm not sure if it's as sturdy but SPS is great. If you go to the top of the Cake Decorating forum one of the stickies is Leah's SPS instructions. Let me know if you can't find it.
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