How to Fill and Stack Cake Layers | Cake Basics

hi guys i'm whitney from sugar and sparrow and today i'm showing you a few tips i've learned on how to fill and stack your cakes while making sure your fillings are sturdy enough to uphold the cake layers above the filling and stacking process is partly responsible for setting the foundation of your overall cake so it's really important to use the right method based on the type of filling you're using in my experience i feel like there are two main categories of cake fillings there's buttercream which is usually pretty sturdy on its own and then there are softer fillings like chocolate ganache salted caramel jam lemon curd or basically anything that won't hold up the weight of a cake layer without creating a bulge or just straight up oozing out of the sides before i start on the filling i want to talk about setting a good foundation for stacking your cake i always use a cardboard cake circle that's the same diameter as my cake layer and you can get these on amazon i'll link them in the video description below next i add a little swipe of buttercream to act as a sort of glue for my cake layer and place the cake on top with a cake circle underneath it makes the entire cake really easy to transport from the cake turntable to a cake stand or a cake box when you're finished with the decorating process filling a cake with buttercream is pretty straightforward i simply add a few spatula scoops full of buttercream on top of a cake layer and smooth it down with my angled spatula until it's about a half inch thick it's important that your buttercream is the right consistency for using as filling my vanilla buttercream recipe which is linked below is the perfect consistency as is but if you find that your buttercream collapses underneath the weight of the above cake layer it will need to be made thicker that could mean adding extra powdered sugar to your buttercream or cooling it in the refrigerator before whipping it back up depending on the type of buttercream you're using once you've smoothed the buttercream down nice and flat it's time to add the next layer of cake if you're using a softer filling like chocolate ganache which is what i have here or lemon curd or salted caramel or anything that could easily collapse under the weight of a cake layer i recommend creating a buttercream dam around the edge of your cake layer before adding your filling to the center to create the dam you'll want to use a medium or stiff consistency buttercream add it into a piping bag and snip off about a half inch opening then create a dam around the cake layer that's about a quarter inch from the edge of the cake then fill in the center of the dam with your filling this method basically gives your filling a nice bumper to hold up the weight of the cake layer keeping your softer filling nice and secure inside smooth down your filling until it's level with the top of the dam then place your next cake layer on top notice that i'm placing my final cake layer upside down on top of this filling this is to prevent extra crumbs from where i've leveled this cake layer from getting into the buttercream i'll eventually be crumb coating and frosting this cake with once the cake is filled and stacked you can get started on your crumb coat which helps seal the foundation of your cake i'll get to that in the next cake basics video if you want to follow along with this cake basics series and all of the other fun cake videos that i release be sure to hit the subscribe button so you never miss a new one you can also head to my blog at sugarandsparrow.com for all of my favorite recipes baking tips cake decorating tutorials and so much more thanks for watching

Channel: Sugar and Sparrow

Views: 150,899

Keywords: layer cakes, cake basics, sugar and sparrow, cake layers, fill and stack cakes, cake filling, fill cakes, stack cakes, three layer cake, chocolate ganache, buttercream, buttercream filling, ganache filling, cake tutorials, build a cake

Id: jwvyChljIQ4

Length: 3min 40sec (220 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 24 2020