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Scaling up wedding cake

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By SueSharpe 01 Dec 2010 14:15	Scaling up wedding cake I am going to make a wedding cake for my daughter who will get married this April. I have made Delia's Christmas cake for a number of years and will follow her recipe. My cakes never end up as 'deep' as the tin when following her quantities. I have been told to make the quantity to fit a tin two sizes larger to avoid this. Can anyone confirm that this is correct? Also, as my largest tier will be made in an 11" tin, how do I scale up the quantities and use the amount for a 13" tin? Delia's advice only goes up to quantities for an 11" tin. Thank you in advance for any help! Reply Quote
By Nenna 01 Dec 2010 14:49	wedding cakes I don't really understand why your cakes would not be as deep as they should be if baked in the 'right' size of tin. I have made that same recipe for years and have used it for wedding cakes scaling up as directed in the recipe and have never had a problem with the depth of the cakes. Can you think of a reason why your cakes are not the right depth? As an example, my Christmas cake this year, which I have just measured is two and a half inches in depth and it was baked in an 8" round tin. This is ample depth when you consider that the marzipan and icing have still to go on. At least I think so! What is the depth of your cake? Reply Quote
By suzannem 01 Dec 2010 14:57	scaling What size and shape of cake does your recipe make and how deep is the finished cake? Eg if you bake an 8"round that's 2" tall but you want it 3" tall you need to divide the quantities of ingredients by 2 then multiply by 3 to scale up. To convert to different sized tins takes a bit of calculation: Find the volume of the cake you have a recipe for, taking the example of 8" round 2" tall the volume is base area x height - pi x radius squared x height 3.142 x 4 x 4 x 2 which is 100.5. Then work out the volume of the tin you need the quantities for eg 11"round 3"tall 3.142 x 6.5 x 6.5 x 3 which is 398.25. Divide the volume of the larger tin by the smaller one and you'll get the number you need to multiply all the quantities by ie 398.25/100.5 which is 3.96 or approx 4 so you would convert an 8" round 2"tall cake recipe to an 11" round 3" tall by multiplying all quantities by 4. If you let me know your exact sizes I'll work it out exactly. Reply Quote
By SueSharpe 01 Dec 2010 16:35	Scaling up wedding cake I've just measured my cake and it's about 8 and a quarter inches tall. I know what you mean about the marzipane and icing bringing it up a bit but I would still like it to be a bit taller. It's going to be one of those cakes where each layer is placed straight onto the previous one. Maybe I've just cooked the cake slightly wrong and it has sunk! Thank you very much for your help. Sue Reply Quote
By SueSharpe 01 Dec 2010 16:45	Scaling up wedding cake I was very impressed with your calculations! I think that I just layered my tins one upon each other and assumed the finished cakes would look the same. However, I then looked at my one trial cake (I'm having for Christmas) and realised that it was much flatter. I found some cakes of the right shape on a website called eatsleepcake and the cakes are much thicker than normal ones. That is the look I am going for. I have already bought a cake stand. It has a flat top measuring 32cm /12and a half inches so my bottom tier has to fit onto it. I have a 10" tin which I hope will do as well as a 8 and a half inch and a 6 and a half inch one. I shall try to follow your advice about scaling up the cakes to make them deeper. Many thanks for your advice. Sue Reply Quote
By Welshcookie 02 Dec 2010 00:12	Wedding cake Fruit cakes are never as deep as the tins. The slices would turn out too deep, wouldn't they? For starters they are never filled to the brim. I'm afraid your posts got too technical for me. Will you be putting each cake on a board? I'm not sure how you put the cakes if they are directly on top of each other, but don't you have to separate them to cut them up? Reply Quote
By SueSharpe 02 Dec 2010 07:52	Scaling up wedding cake My own wedding cake must have been on boards separated by little columns but my daughter wants the new fashioned ones where the layers are placed straight on top of each other. I believe that you put some dowels in the cakes when you are assembling them to keep them together. I think that you ice each cake separately and take it apart when you cut it up in pieces. As you can see, I don't know much about it but am picking up some valuable tips through the forum. Thanks, Sue Reply Quote
By suzannem 02 Dec 2010 09:13	Scaling up wedding cake - boards If you're making a stacked cake (cakes sitting directly on top of each other) you still need to place the cakes on boards, but you use 4mm hardboards or 3mm double thick cards, not the cake drums. This allows the dowels to support the board above. I think cake height is a matter of personal preference, 20 - 30 years ago 2 1/2" was the norm, now 3 - 4" is common, especially in a stacked cake, which can look very 'squat' if the tiers aren't tall enough. The old way was to have the larger cakes a bit taller to look in proportion ie if the bottom tier was 3" tall, the middle would be 2 3/4" and the top 2 1/2" but now cakes can all be the same height. I bake my wedding cakes to between 3 - 3 1/2" before covering, the marzipan and icing adds another 1/2 - 3/4" so the finished height is over 4" tall but its entirely up to you. Reply Quote
By maidmargot 11 May 2012 13:07	Rich fruit cake Why can't cake recipes actually tell you what the finished depth will be? I have just baked a 12 inch round cake as the bottom tier of my daughter's atacked wedding cake - depth was 6 cms but actually I would have liked one about 8 or 9 cms deep. If I make another, do I just increase the quantities by 50% - not sure I have a bowl large enough to mix it althogether!!!!!!!! Reply Quote
By Welshcookie 11 May 2012 13:21	Bowls Either mix it all up in two bowls or use a washing-up bowl or large bucket. You can do a mix on consecutive days. The mixture will sit quite happily overnight in a cool place. Reply Quote