Hi

I'm not too good at explaining this but here goes.............

I am making a tiered cake and would like to use cake drums the same size as the cakes themselves. In the past, when I cook the cakes they shrink back a little and end up slightly smaller than the drums.

For example, if a bake a cake in a 6 inch tin, the cake actually comes out just under 6 inches, yet the board is 6 inches.

This makes covering the cake and drum tricky because they a slightly different sizes, is the marzipan layer meant to cover the drum as well or is it meant to just come down to the drum and then cover the whole lot including the drum with fondant/sugarpaste?

I assume I cover the whole lot with marzipan and then just work at it with my smoother?

Any tips/tricks to help?

Thanks

AWhen you marzipan or crumb coat the cake down to the drum that will even it out then adding the fondant or bc will take care of the difference.

AI'm assuming you want to hide the hide the drum by the above reply sorry if that's not what you meant?

AAre you really talking about cake cardboards or actually cake drums? Generally drums only go at the base of the entire cake, not at each tier.

Thanks for the replies.

Yes I am trying to hide the drums, I have used drums instead of boards to give extra height to the tiers. Have been working the cake today and it seems to be coming together OK after adding extra marzipan, but what puzzles me is......

regardless of whether it is a drum or a cardboard base - if the tin is 6 inch and the board is 6 inch but when the cake comes out of the tin it shrinks a little bit, how do you make up the difference between shrunken 6 inch cake and actual 6 inch board - without getting a step?

or am I creating a problem that isn't really a problem at all...........perhaps the drums, boards, tins are measured differently here in the UK

AI use that shrinkage area to build up my buttercream or ganache layer, regardless of how much space is there. And if the cake did not shrink enough, I cut a little off the edges to make that space.

^ this.  That space is where the buttercream goes.