Help with cup cake tower

[julie68]

Ive been asked by a friend of a friend to do an engagement cupcake tower, she want it the same as Julie christening cake (with a small cake on top) She wants it for next Saturday!!!! Ive not done one before but would like to have a go, she wants each cupcake to have their names on!!!! Ive told her I could get them printed on edible icing, now I'm panicking a bit, as I don't know what icing to use on the cup cakes, can I use rolled fondant? or do I use royal icing? also what do I use to separate the tiers? the separators ive seen are so expensive, are pillars going to be stable enough? and how much will I charge??? Think Im going to have some sleepless nights this week any advice would be greatly appreciated) thanks Julie

[julie68]

Oh, and can anyone tell me what cake cases to use? ive just had a trial run with muffin cases but they look massive, would normal baking cases be better??? or would they be too small to decorate?

[juliebtaurus]

HI Julie ive sent you a message but i used ordinary size cakes not muffin and sugarpaste i got seperators from ebay for about £20 included postage ill send you the link. but pillars are also stable enough. youcan also cover polystyrene dummy cakes with colour co-ordinated ribbon and seperate using them you can use glass veses filled with coloured gems champagne flutes look good if you place them on three or four in centre for and engagement cake. the weight tends to keep it stable.send me another message if you need anymore help.p.s im doing another one in pink for the 12th oct. they semm to be popular with the young ones .i also just calculate everything ive spent and add on what i am happy with for my time but on websites ive seen them for £140-300

[julie68]

thank you again Julie, I like the glass vase idea might try that. Your right,I think cupcake towers are very fashionable right now so I might invest in some proper seperaters or even a stand

[rach]

I do lots of cup cakes but I use muffin cases you can use the plain ones or the silver or multi coloured one..I like them cos I get a bigger fuller lighter cake ..does that make sense..but you can use smaller ones it depends wot u prefer really..got one to do for friday for a wedding but I am just doing the cakes with a swirl of buttercream and glitter on top.
The muffin cake stands are always popular too..I have a piccie on my website.

If you are stacking with pillers or a separator the weight of the board and cakes will hold it in its place so dont worry too much about that.

I hope that helps abit xx

[victoria]

you can always use cake boards for your stand...cover them with sugarpaste and a matching ribbon around and for the separators just stick a few smaller ones together and cover with broad ribbon....or you can get polystyrene separators...I'll have a look and see if I can find any online...as for what icing you use...you can use a weak royal icing solution with a bit of glycerine in to keep it from going brittle and just pour it on and it finds a level against the edge of the cases (no good if your cakes are above the cases though)

Bit short notice for a cake!

[julie68]

Thank you all, I have brought some cake seperators off of e bay , just hope they come in time! and I will use cake boards I am going to use muffin cases. I had a trial run with some royal icing but it didn't set very quickly will the glycerine help? yes it is short notice but I like a challange

[julie68]

Oh, and if anyone fancys a trip to Richmond on Fri/Sat to hand write their names on each cupcake (60) and decorate the other 60 please let me know!!!!!! (only joking I just wanted to make it 100 posts)

[rach]

Richmond ion surrey I used to live 20mins from there till I moved down to worthing..lol

[julie68]

Yes Richmond in Surrey, well just outside of Richmond in Ham. My stands have not yet arrived, I've got bubbles in my royal icing and I put the wrong colour football kit on my model (black instead of navy) of man in a Tottenham kit, so ive just come on here to have a moan!!!!!! so if you fancy revisiting you old area Rach just let me know!!

[julie68]

Have now got rid of the cake thank god!!!!! although I enjoyed doing it I did have a few hiccups, the biggest being the seperators not arriving (posted Tuesday) the nice people at the Royal Mail tell me its the Christmas rush!!!! honestly can you belive it? apparantly it starts early for them?!?!? Anyway after a morning on the phone, online and with 2 kids driving me nuts I opted for some pillars (should have just done that in the first place) the traffic was a nightmare and it took 2 and a 1/2 hours just to drop the kids at my mother in laws and buy some pillars. The only other problam I had was that the cupcakes stuck to the cake board a bit ( i had kept them cool so I dont know why this happened) but she was very happy with the cake, will post pic on my cakes page. Oh and thanks again for all the good advice x

[victoria]

I think the pillars worked really well...if you leave royal icing to stand for a while with a damp cloth over the top of the bowl all the bubbles rise to the surface and you can just run a knife over them and pop them...and it should set fairly hard overnight (sometimes quicker than that deoending on the thickness) if it isn't setting very well you haven't got enough egg white in it...I always use meriwhite and make a solution of 18g meriwhite, 65mls water and 450g icing sugar...glycerine just makes it a bit easier to cut and eat - it's like glass otherwise.

[rach]

oh will remember that with the post ..isnt it always the way when you need something..glad it all worked out in the end.

[julie68]

Thanks Victoria will try this next time i use royal icing, think i didn't use enough egg white

[victoria]

also if you use real egg white or dried pure egg white it apparently takes longer to set up hard than if using merriwhite (which is a merringue mix and has some additives in it..gum trag too I think)