Hi all!!! I have a wedding cake coming up and they want it all buttercream. I guess my question is basically what methods are used for stacking a wedding cake. I use dowels on all my other stacked celebration cakes but this will obviously be my largest cake yet. It's a 4 tier/150 servings cake. Also, how it the world do you get it to look so smooth? Am I using the wrong type of buttercream (wilton recipe)? Any suggestions would tremendously be appreciated. Maybe I should add all my cakes are covered in fondant so this would be my first buttercream. Also, I'm worried that the buttercream will soften and the cake would collapse. A little paranoid here lol. PLEASE HELP!!!! TIA

I use sugarshacks buttercream icing recipe or indy debs both will crust nicely so you can smooth it. I use sps system for my cakes and have never had any problems transporting 4 tier cakes -instructions posted in how to section. HTH

ok for smoothing I advise you to get "sugared productions perfecting the art of buttercream" you can search it on google it has helped me so much with buttercream smoothing. if you have a good support system you do not have to worry about your cake colapsing. look up sps system it is cheap and great for stacked cakes ... I also use the wilton buttercream so yes you can use this on a wedding cake

Everything you need to know to make, decorate and assemble tiered/stacked/layer cakes:

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

Above superthread contains popular CC recipes for crusting American b/c's, several types of fondant and doctored cake mix (WASC with flavor variations) - and so much more including popular cake support systems w/complete instructions!

HTH

Calm down; take a deep breath and let it out. Remember to breath through this
B'cream will NOT make the cake soft, fall apart or collapse. If you look at my pictures you will see some 80-90% of my cakes are b'cream. Yes, even the biggest wedding cakes
Nothing wrong w/the Wilton recipe except there are many other recipes that taste sooo much better. One I recommend is "2 of everything". It is very simple:
2 cups shortening (Crisco)
2 cups butter
2 pounds of powdered sugar
2 pinches of salt
2 Tablespoons flavoring (make a mixture of vanilla; butter and almond flavorings or whatever taste you prefere)
Cream the butter and shortening very well - up to 10 minutes. Add about 1/4 to 1/3 of the sugar while beating on low to med speed; continue beating another 5-10 minutes before adding another portion of sugar, flavoring & salt & again combine for 5-10 minutes; now add the last of the sugar & beat until sugar is incomporated and icing is super smoooooth
That icing will NOT crust. For a crusting icing it is a simple matter of reducing the fat by 1 cup: That would mean using 1&1/2 cups of each OR using 1 C Crisco and 2 cups of butter OR 1 cup butter and 2 of Crisco.
This icing spreads so easily and smoothly you won't believe it
If you want the video by SugarEd productions I have a copy available......p.m. me

I think everyone here has you covered regarding the buttercream. And I agree there are better tasting buttercream than Wilton's.

Regarding the dowels, I use them as well. With all my tiered cakes , in addition to the dowels on each tier, I always put one long dowel in the center that that connects all tiers together as well. So far so good!