The Basics of Tier Stacking~Video

In this tutorial, I will show you how to easily stack frosted cake tiers.

This popular, simple stacked construction is perfect for everything from birthday cake designs to baby shower cakes, bridal shower cakes, and more!

Whether you are going to adorn your cake with sweet accents for a child's party or add elegant sugar flowers for a wedding, you need to start with a foundation that is secure.

Stacking cake tiers can be a little intimidating at first, but it is not as difficult as you think. In this tutorial, I am going to demonstrate stacking two tiers (8 and 6 inch), and how to stabilize the structure with dowels/supports and cardboard cake circles.

*There are many ways to stack tiers, and there are all sorts of stacking structures available online. This is the simplest way for me!

Table of Contents

Materials for Stacking Cake Tiers

I'm using a three layer 8 inch tier and a 3 layer 6" tier. (The layers of the 6" tier are thicker and therefore this is a taller tier.) These layers happen to be White Almond Sour Cream (doctored mix from our Recipes section)

Buttercream Frosting- I'm using our High Ratio recipe

2 Cardboard Cake Circles (or foam core cake circles) for support

4 bubble tea straws (or your supports of choice)

Spatula(s) of choice.

Sharp knife (used to run beneath the cake and the turntable)

Turntable (Not essential for stacking tiers but very helpful for frosting and decorating)

Long (thin) wooden skewer or lollipop stick, etc.- Used to measure the height of our bottom tier

Food coloring Pen- (Mine was americolor) to mark the height of our tier onto the wooden skewer and also onto our straws

Wilton Tip 3 or other small round tip of choice for filling in and correcting any imperfections in the icing

Viva paper towel (for smoothing over any rough spots--optional) --Hot knife method works well for this also.

Cake base or pedestal

Notes for Tier Stacking

The 8 inch tier used in this video is the same tier that you can watch me trim, fill, and crumb coat in our Crumb Coating video tutorial.

It is also the cake from our Viva Paper Towel Method of Smoothing video, if you'd like to see how we frosted it & smoothed with nice, sharp corners.

*Make sure to chill your buttercream-frosted tiers before stacking. I tend to pop mine in the freezer for about 15 minutes (or until frosting is just firm). Just don't forget to remove from the freezer or your cake will develop condensation.

Chilling the tiers before stacking will allow you to more easily move the top tier onto the bottom, and to reposition if necessary.

*As I mentioned in the tutorial, the bubble tea straws are great for stacking 2 tiered cakes. I've only used bubble tea straws with 3 tiered cakes a few times, as I prefer to use something more substantial for heavy cakes.

Decorating Stacked Tiered Cakes

We've decorated many tiered cakes over the years in our free cake videos. Here are just a few examples!

60 Comments

Hi Jean--I'm sorry you didn't see my answer-- your question was actually posted under our SPS/Autumn cake--I'm linking you to that page so that you can see my answer and the link that I included to our tier separations video--

Hi Melissa, great site, am new here, question do you think I need to do the straws if I am putting a dummy cake as 2nd tier, intend doing ruffle cake on bottom with
a painted dummy 2nd tier which will have 2 gumpaste people on top, prob 8 and 6 inch

Hi there--I would to be on the safe side. Once the dummies are frosted or covered with fondant, they are surprisingly heavy. I actually even put straws under my cake toppers sometimes for fear that they'll sink ;) Good luck with your cake--it sounds like it is going to be beautiful!

Hi Melissa, if I am doing a 2 tiered cake like this but covering both tiers in fondant, should I stick the dowels in before I cover in fondant or after ?

Hi Natalie--I put my dowels in as a last step before stacking. So, I cover with fondant first.

Thanks Melissa, fingers crossed, thanks for the advice, hopefully will post a pic if it doesn't go wrong ha ha

Hi Melissa and Bebe,

How tall can you make one tier before it needs supports? For example, your top tier, if that was a single cake, how much higher can you go before it needs a form of support?

Thanks for all your help.

Hi Avril-- Doweling/adding supports & a cake board for approximately every 4 inches of height is a pretty common rule of thumb. Not only does it keep your tiers structurally sound, it also makes slicing and serving much easier. A 6" tall piece of cake would be a BIG piece of cake ;0) --

I have had 5" tall tiers that I didn't dowel within, but that was probably pushing it a little. I wouldn't go any taller than that without adding supports.

Thanks Mellisa :) That helps a lot.

Hi Melissa,

I'm making a 4, 8" layer cake. Could you please tell me if I need to add a cake board between the first two layers or do I just add the tea straws? I'm new to cake stacking.
Thank you,
Cindy

Hi Cindy, We usually add support with 4 inches of height. You would add bubble tea straws to your first two cake layers, then a cake board and add the second 2 cake layers. You will have a double barrel cake. Here is a link to Melissa's double barrel cake video, it you would like to watch it. Good Luck with your cake.