How to Make a Tiered Cake PART 1

Stacking a cake can be nerve-wracking but with  the tips and tricks in this tutorial you'll be   able to assemble, frost and stack a  two or three tier cake confidently!   The first step is of course to bake your cakes.  I'm using my Perfect Chocolate Cake batter and   the recipe on www.britishgirlbakes.com has  a table with the ingredients for different   sizes from 6 inch to 10 inch and two different  heights, standard and tall. Leave your cakes in   the pans for 10 minutes to cool slightly and  then turn them out onto wire racks and leave   them to cool completely, which takes about two  hours then after they cool. I really recommend   chilling them and you'll see why in a moment.  I've wrapped these eight inch cake layers in   plastic wrap and put them in the freezer for  just 30 minutes or an hour in the fridge. This   is a cake drum and it's a thick cake board  that can support the weight of a tier cake.   Starting with my eight inch layers I'm assembling  the bottom tier of the cake first. Spread a dot of   buttercream onto the middle of the cake drum and  then push the first layer of cake down onto it.   The dot of buttercream will act like glue to stop  the cake from sliding around as you frost and to   decorate it. Spread or pipe your filling onto the  first layer and you'll notice that these layers   are very firm because they're cold which means  you can lift them and move them around without   them cracking or crumbling and it makes frosting  them much quicker and easier and neater. As you   place each cake layer on the cake take your time  to line it up above the layer beneath it so that   the sides of the cake are straight and it's not  leaning. Cover the whole cake in a thin layer   of frosting called a crumb coat because it's  meant to catch any crumbs that come off the   cake. I like to start with the top, spooning on a  generous amount of buttercream and then spreading   it all over the top of the cake, pushing it  out beyond the edges of the cake to prevent   a domed top later. Hold your offset spatula at  a 45 degree angle and spin the cake to smooth   and level the frosting and the excess frosting  will build up on your offset spatula until you   swipe it off and then scrape that frosting into  a bowl. Use a new bowl so that you're not putting   this frosting into your main bowl of frosting  since this frosting might have crumbs of cake in   it and you don't want to get those into the rest  of your frosting that you're then going to use   for the final layer of frosting later. Move down  to the sides of the cake and make sure that the   frosting sticks up above the top edge of the  cake which is going to prevent a domed top and   also give you nice sharp angles from the sides  of the cake up onto the top of the cake. Frosting   a cake is definitely easier to do when your cake  layers are cold compared to room temperature cake   layers because cold cake layers are firm so the  cake won't wobble when you apply pressure to it   while you're spreading on the frosting and also  cold layers are much less crumbly so you won't   pull off any pieces of cake as you spread on your  sticky frosting. This is my 4 Minute Buttercream   and the recipe is on www.britishgirlbakes.com and  linked In the video description. Scrape around the   cake a few times with a straight edged cake comb  or frosting smoother. The crumb coat doesn't have   to be perfectly smooth but make sure it gives  the cake a neat outline with straight sides and   a level top and also, very important, make sure  there's no exposed cake because you need this   layer of frosting to cover the whole cake so that  it traps every crumb that might come off the cake.   Use your offset spatula to scrape the buildup of  frosting from your cake comb and use it to fill in   any indents in the frosted cake where the frosting  isn't as thick as on the rest of the cake. Scrape   around the cake again and for the top edge, push  sideways with your offset spatula to take off the   excess frosting that's sticking up around the top  edge, leaving a neat sharp angle behind. Put this   cake on its cake drum in the fridge while you  assemble the other tiers. I share a new cake   decorating tutorial every week so if you're  enjoying this one and you want to see more,   make sure you click that Subscribe button. For the  next tier of this cake choose a cake board that's   the same size as the cake or as close to that  size as possible. This is a six inch cake on a six   inch board. Attach the first layer with a dot of  buttercream. Add your filling and then place the   next cake layer directly on top. This is a short  six inch cake made with my Small Batch Chocolate   Cake recipe which is on www.britishgirlbakes.com  and linked in the video description. You can see   that my cake layers aren't perfectly flat. Instead  of levelling them which would take away from the   height of the cake I'm using my filling to create  a level top before adding the next cake and   filling in any gaps with more buttercream. This  is perfectly fine if you're going to chill your   cake until a few hours before serving it because  when this buttercream gets cold it firms up and   will hold everything in place so you don't have  to worry about drooping or bulging or leaning.   If you want to level your cake layers use a  serrated knife like a bread knife to trim off   any domes so that the top of each cake layer  is flat. Cover this cake in a crumb coat as   well. Put this cake in the fridge to chill and  repeat the process with the rest of your cakes.   This little four inch cake will be the top tier  of my three-tier cake and I've assembled it on a   cardboard cake board which I've trimmed to be the  same size as the cake because I didn't have a cake   board as small as this cake. The board needs to be  the same size as the cake so that it's invisible   by the time you've frosted and stacked the cake.  To frost the cake it's easiest to use a larger   cake board as well with a non-slip mat and then  place the cake on its little cake board on top   and then frost the cake. This way the frosting  won't get all over your turntable because the   large cake board at the bottom will catch it all.  It's also easier to move the cake around when it's   on a bigger board so that you have something  to hold on to when you pick it up and put it   into the fridge. Okay, once the crumb coat has set  which takes about 30 minutes in the fridge you can   spread on the final layer of frosting or pipe it  on. Chilling the crumb coat makes it firm instead   of sticky so none of the crumb coat frosting will  mix with this final layer of frosting, meaning   that the colours will stay separate instead of  blending and also that any crumbs within the crumb   coat frosting won't get into this final layer of  frosting so no crumbs will be visible on the final   decorated cake. I'm using my Facelift Frosting  technique on this cake and the other two as well   and I have a separate tutorial on that technique  and the link is in the video description.   When you finish each cake put it back into the  fridge to chill and set the frosting. I don't   recommend adding any decorations yet like piped  borders or texture or wafer paper or anything that   might get damaged when you stack the cakes later.  It's best to add those details right at the end   when the cake is already tiered. Note that your  cakes don't all have to be the same height. The   previous cake, the pink one, was about five inches  tall but this one is only about three inches tall.   Sometimes it's nice to vary the heights of each  cake and you'll see at the end that this design   is so dramatic and colourful that the different  heights really add to the effect but for a more   traditional design you might choose to use the  same height for each cake. The conversion table   for my Perfect Chocolate Cake recipe which is  on www.britishgirlbakes.com has measurements   for both standard and tall cakes so whatever  width your cakes are, 6 inch, 8 inch, 10 inch,   the heights will all be the same either standard  or tall. It's fine if you can see the cake board   at the bottom of the cake. I'll show you how  to cover that up during the stacking process.   I'm using lots of colours of buttercream for my  cake but you might be using just one. However   many colours you're using it's important to  save any leftovers for the stacking process.   Cover any bowls of buttercream with plastic wrap  or if you're using piping bags you can leave the   leftovers in those, putting the whole bag into a  tupperware to prevent the buttercream from drying   out or twist the end of the bag to keep it tight  and wrap the piping tip with plastic wrap and that   will prevent the exposed buttercream from drying  out and crusting. Take your time to make the top   edge of each cake neat because the edges are going  to be very noticeable when the cake is stacked and   having a sharp angle from the sides onto the top  of each cake makes the cake look much neater and   prettier than having a rounded top edge. I have a  tutorial on 15 Frosting Mistakes You're Making and   How to Fix Them that can help with your frosting  technique. Put all of your cakes in the fridge   for at least two hours before stacking them. At  this point you should have the bottom tier on a   cake drum at least four inches wider than the cake  and the top tiers on cake boards the same size as   those cakes. It's fine if the boards are visible  for now. In part two of this tutorial I'll show   you how to stack these cakes to make a three-tier  cake so make sure you watch that video next!

Channel: British Girl Bakes

Views: 30,840

Keywords: buttercream cake, easy cake decorating ideas, cake decorating, cake decorating videos for beginners, cake decorating ideas, buttercream cake decorating, cake decorating tutorial, british girl bakes, tier cake, how to make a tier cake, two tier, three tier, 3 tier, 2 tier, how to stack a tier cake, how to stack a tiered cake, how to tier a cake

Id: TjGi_j4STd4

Length: 8min 43sec (523 seconds)

Published: Tue May 02 2023