Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A

Hi, hoping someone can help me out. I’m doing a Wedding Cake which will have a floating tier, like used in his Ruffle Rose cake. The bottom tier will be a 10″, therefore I’m planning using 2 x 8″ cake drums, my question is, do I use a cake card or drum under the 10″ cake (on top of the ‘floating tier’)? Hope that makes sense to someone!! Xx

Hi Wendy

It depends how you intend decorating up the two 8″ drums If you’re going for a blingy wrap which can be seen, it might be better to have the cake on a card and edge it with a really lovely ribbon or cake lace. Try it out with a dummy cake or cake tins to give you any idea how it would look. Personally I would use a card, I think that gives a better floating impresssion. This is just my opinion, hopefully others will share how they would do it. x

Thanks. Yes I’m going to use a blingy ribbon, it was more about the weight of the cakes. I will have 3 tiers, 10″ 8″ 6″. Would a cake card under the 10″ hold the weight of the 3 tiers balancing on the floating 8″ drums? I have made it previously, similar to Paul’s ruffle rose cake but with dummies so weight wasn’t an issue. Sorry, I probably didn’t explain this very well the first time! X

Hi Wendy

I’m soo sorry, your question is perfectly clear, it’s just me not reading through properly!!

I think it would be safer to use a drum under the 10″ cake just in case a card decides to bend at the edges.
In the rose ruffle tutorial Paul used a dummy cake which was the floating tier and as you said, weight would not have been an issue. With a real cake the weight will eventually begin to bear down at the sides so I would say there is a reasonable risk of the bottom tier collasping. Although we do have assume that Paul would use a card under a real cake. He doesn’t advice us in the tutorial to use a drum. Better to be safe than sorry, use a drum. xx

Drum it is, thank you x