Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A

Hello all,
As an amateur I’m beginning to regret agreeing to make a 4 tiered cake for my friend’s wedding. It’s a Hexagon Shaped Cake, which needs to be roughly 3” tall before filling & decorating. The 14” bottom layer is fruit cake & has been made by the bride it is roughly 2.75 inches before decorating. The 3 layers I am having difficulty with are 12” 10” & 8”. I am going to make each layer 1.5” but I can’t find a recipe anywhere to give quantities for Hexagon Cakes. My friend is wanting 12” Vanilla Sponge, 10” Orange Sponge & 8” Chocolate Sponge.
Can anyone please help as I’m now panicking with only 5 wks to go.
Thanks in advance

Hi kathrobinson1

I’m picking this message up pretty late, please give me 24hours to respond. It’s not as bad as it may appear.
Meanwhile you may find the site calculators helpful here: https://www.cakeflix.com/cake-calculators

We’ll sort something good out in 5 weeks! 🙂

I do hope you can help i’ll be ever so grateful. i’ve tried the calculator but it doesn’t show hexagon sizes. I could cry ?

Hi kathrobinson1

How tall will the finished cakes be? Does the bride want all the cakes to be the same height? The fruit cake is 2.75″ tall as baked, so it will probably be just over approx 3″ – 3.5″ tall once it has been marzipaned and iced. Will you want the hexagons to be the same? and are you making each cake with a single layer of filling? The amount of filled layers will make a difference to the height of the cakes.

The simplest way would be to calculate for a 4″ deep round cake. After baking it will finish approximately 3″ tall. This can be torted into two 1.5 layers. Once filled and decorated it will finish approx 3.5″ tall. Do you have a hexagon cake tin? If you do, make a trial cake. Use the calculator to scale the recipe for 4″ deep round cake. This will give you a good idea how deep it will finish. Please don’t worry because there is no need. There’s plenty of time and a trial cake will definitely give you some reassurance. Just let me know how tall the cakes should be once completely finished. 🙂

Hi madeitwithlove

After a complete meltdown yesterday, i have managed to get two separate layers of the 12″ cake size made with 14 oz flour x 14oz butter x 14oz sugar 14 oz eggs 170deg 55mins cooking time. Sadly some sides are 1.5″ some are 1.25″ but this is progress. Oh & fruit cake was actually 2.5″ NOT 2.75″ as stated previously I haven’t seen it yet so hope these measurements are correct.

Ideally I was hoping because of the Hexagon shape to make it as one cake & split that way when i sugar paste it corners will match exactly. I’m having a break till later at which time I may try & rather than just double previous amounts i will up the size slightly 32oz x 32oz x 32oz 32oz eggs and see what happens. I will use a nail in the centre and wrap with wet thick kitchen towels which i have always done and see what happens. Do i keep temperature the same or lower it as i assume i’ll have to cook it long than double the time it took on the previous layers. I value your comments. Thanks in advance

Which recipe are you following? and did you use the site calculator for scaling?
If you bake one deep cake it will be better to bake on a lower temperature for longer. It’s a good idea to use the flower nails and wrapping in wet towelling. You will get a more even bake.