Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A

I have a 4 tier cake to assemble. Bottom tier fruit cake 10”, then 8, 6 & 5”. I wanted to give the fruit cake more height, so stuck 3 x 10” drums together with royal icing & placed cake on top stuck with royal icing. With the weight of other cakes, would it be stable enough? Now worried that the drums will move. Also, put marzipan and sugar paste on fruit cake and put in cake box uncovered. Icing seems really hard. Will it be alright to cut? Really worrying, as it’s for my daughters wedding cake.

Hi Tomandhen123

Congratulations on your daughter’s wedding!

The three cake drums stuck together will be strong enough to hold all of the cakes. As long as you have stuck them well, they shouldn’t shift. If you are still worried, you could hot glue the drums together instead of using royal icing.

I usually place all the stacked cakes on a drum which is two sizes up from the actually size of the bottom tier. So, the ten inch elevated bottom tier rests first on a twelve inch drum followed by the other dowelled tiers. This gives plenty of strength to carry the weigh of all the cakes. It will be very heavy though and thought should be given as to how you will manoeuvre the whole structure.

I used to stack two by two and finish the final stacking and decorating at the venue. Please can you let me know if all the cakes are fruit or are some of them sponge. How long has the icing been left uncovered?

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It was covered about a month ago. Will it be ok? I’m using a good sugarpaste, so it dries really firm. Other two tiers are sponge, approx 8” tall each and a 5” dummy on top. Caje will be kept at home and only moving it out doors to marquee. Should I strip the sugar paste off the marzipan and put fresh? Is this possible? Or should it be ok to cut?

The sugarpaste on the fruitcake should be alright to cut. However, if it’s been left uncovered it may have airborne particles on it.

It’s quite easy to strip off the sugarpaste and marzipan if you’d feel happier. All you do is cover the cake with a moist warm tea towel for a few minutes. Once it is soft but not sticky, take a pointed knife and gently mark off the icing in portions and gradually peel off in sections. The marzipan can be done in the same way.

The cake can then be brushed with a little boiled apricot jam or any clear preserve before recovering. ?