Two tiered cake, size of each cake?

[LeonardoAcropolis]

Hello, after some advice.

If the top tier of a cake is cooked in a 6 inch pan, how big should the bottom be? 8 inches or 9 inches? I have not done this before.

I only have shallow cake pans, should I use deep pans if each cake is to be tall enough? If I use shallow pans will I imagine I may lose too much cake by levelling the tops.

I have done a 6 on top and a 10 on the bottom, shallow pans but two cakes sandwiched together for each tier. Are they to be sat directly on top of eachother with dowel? I think you can get away with a smaller size difference if you are separating with columns or pillars. Having said that I think 6 and 9 would be fine.

Hi, thanks for your answer, yes I will stack them and use some dowells. The bottom tier will prob be a fruit cake so no sandwiching there, I will have a trial run and if the size difference looks silly I will invest in a 10 inch pan.

It is to be my brother's wedding cake (bites knuckles).

Wow good luck!

I tend to think of it as the 'shelf' that gets left behind - so for a 3" size difference, you'll have a 1.5" shelf all the way around the cake between the layers if your top tier is central. For a simple style, that's probably fine. How much decoration do you want though? Once you've iced etc. (assuming you're using fondant?) that's not a huge amount of space for very ornate décor. Hope that helps

Hello twiglet, thanks for your reply. The decoration will be very simple, a ribbon around the bottom of each and some little sugar paste butterflies stuck to the sides.

Tiered wedding cakes would normally be done in 2" steps, i.e. 7"/9"/11" or 6"/8"/10"etc. Mind you, who has to be normal?

Not me If I was doing 3 tiers then a smaller ledge would look nicer but as it's only two I hope it will look fine. I am getting a couple of chances to practice so I hope I will get it right. My dad and ds1 will get birthday cakes resembling wedding cakes, haha!