Hello, all!  My MIL has asked me to make a birthday cake for her friend for Thanksgiving.  I’m making a two-tiered classic genoise with peach cloud cream.  Any suggestions on tiering with cloud cream?  Do I not put any underneath the place where the top cake goes?  Will it make the cardboard soggy?  Will it look odd when it’s cut in that spot? 

Also, I have looked in TCB and found some great help on how to mix the batter, but wondering if you all had some advice as well.  I’m making a 10 inch and an 8 inch genoise.  Will my 5 quart mixer be able to handle doing just a double batch and can I put both cakes in the oven at the same time?  I’m one egg over the recommendation in the book, I’m wondering if it’s too risky to try…but if I can’t, how CAN I do it?  The wedding cake math was a bit confusing to me. 

Thank you all so much for your assistance!!  : )

To be on the safe side, I’d start with only doing about 2 pans in your oven at a time (do the 10” batch and the 8” batch separately)—any time I’ve done cakes on 2 racks, I’ve been disappointed with the results—perhaps your oven would work better than mine, but in my experience, I’d rather get it right the first time.  Genoise can’t be rotated or else they will collapse, so if they’re baking unevenly you’re stuck.  Others may wish to chime in, but the cloud cream may be a bit soft as a filling, especially if you are doing a stacked cake.  An alternative might be to use a filling (the pie and pastry bible has options) or a curd.  I’d be a little concerned about the cloud cream holding up since it won’t be very firm (but that’s the beauty of it.) You could wrap the cardboard in foil to ensure it doesn’t get soggy, but with a buttercream that’s not so much of a concern. 

BTW, I think your mixer would handle the “extra” egg, but my concern is with respect to the baking of the layers. 

As far as the math, I’ll check the recipes and get back to you.

Thanks so much for your help!  I really appreciate it.  I was wondering if you understood me, because this is something I was wondering in the book, too.  When they mean one layer…they mean two cakes, right?  I’m doing just a little one…sort of like a double Strawberry Maria…just one 10 inch and one 8 inch cake.  Math is not my strong suit, I guess.  ; )

Generally I consider a layer cake to be composed of two 1”-2” high cakes (so this usually means baking two cakes of the same size and then putting a filling/frosting between them for a total cake height of 2.5” - 4”).  A tiered cake is one like a wedding cake where multiple layer cakes are stacked atop one another.  In the book, I understand 1 layer to mean one cake—I believe Rose is very specific regarding this—for some recipes it will make 1 - 2” high layer (as in the Chocolate Domingo) and with other recipes she will specify that the recipe makes 2 - 1.5” high cakes such as the chocolate butter cake.  Of course, in her wedding cake section she uses different charts, but in the end, they all should have the same formula as the “sister” recipe in the earlier part of the book.  So, I’m not sure I fully understand what you want.  If I was making a stacked (2 -tier) cake—I would bake 2 - 10” round (by 2” high) layers and then 2 - 8” (by 2” high) layers.  This would give you (roughly) 4” high tiers (for a total cake height of 8”). 

If you are using the chart on P.502, using the 8” rose factor of 7 will make two 8"round by 2” high cakes.  To get the amount for 2 -8” round cakes, multiply the base formula on P. 504 by 7 (if you only want 1-8” cake, you will multiply by 3.5 instead).

Similarly, for the 10” layers, you will need to multiply the base formula for genoise on P. 504 by 11 (if you only want 1 cake instead of 2, then multiply by 5.5). 

If all you want is 1 -10” cake (by about 2” high) layered with 1 - 8” (by 2” high) cake, then I think the fruit cloud cream would be fine, but if it is a stacked cake (totalling 4 cake layers) then I think I’d avoid the fruit cloud cream.

I hope this helps.

Regarding your first post, the cakes, when tiered like a wedding cake, are not stacked directly on top of one another, but rather on a support system of cardboard rounds and straws.  Read up in the wedding cake section for all the details.  If you cut the straws slightly taller than the frosting, then you won’t have to worry about the upper tier messing up the frosting on top of the lower tier.  Just be sure to stack them on site, not before transport.

Yes to everything Sherrie said, all good advice.

And just to make sure we’re all speaking the same language, a tier is comprised of two layers with buttercream in between.  Each layer is baked in a separate pan, so each tier requires two pans.  It sounds like you’re making a lower tier of two 10x2 layers with filling in between, plus an upper tier of two 8x2 layers with filling in between, is that right?

Thank you all VERY much!  That was incredibly helpful.  Thank you for spending your time to explain it all.  My mother-in-law wanted a big one (two cakes per layer) like you and the book stated, but since there are only ten people at the party, I talked her down to one cake per layer…just a little one.  Just a ten inch round (one pan/cake) and one 8 inch on top…sort of like a double Strawberry Maria.  Your advice helped me with this project, but thanks for explaining what the book meant…which will help with future projects!  : )  Have a very happy Thanksgiving!!

...And your comment about avoiding the Cloud cream was another question I’ve been having…my in-laws are Korean and don’t like any frosting but whipped…our wedding cake was even whipped (although tiered with the more old-fashioned pillars that separate all the layers) and I’ve always wondered what sort of whipped cream they used.  But all the wedding cakes in the Korean bakery book had pillars…is it fair to assume that it’s because of the whipped cream?

Yes, possibly.  When there’s solid support structure, there isn’t so much strength needed from the cakes.  Although it is also possible to have a solid support sturcture that still looks like the cakes are stacked with no space in between them.  I think the most difficult thing about using whipped cream for wedding cakes is the fact that it needs to be refrigerated until a few hours before serving. 

I recently made a small-ish tiered cake, 10-8-6, two layers for each tier, and it worked very well, with none of the upper cakes actually touching the one beneath it, yet it looked like the cakes were resting on each other.  I cut the straws 1/8” taller than the frosting, and stacked the cakes at the serving table (I didn’t try to transport them stacked). 

You were right to scale down the quantity of cake, my 10-8-6 served about 65-70 with a little left over!

I will definitely be doing the straw trick…and thanks for the tip on transportation.  We’ve got a 45 min. drive…it could have been a disaster!  : )