A good friend of mine was throwing a Sweet 16 party for her oldest of 5.  Her daughter loved to play the piano, so she wanted a black/white/pink piano cake.  And she wanted it big and bold.  Now, I’m all for bold, but the “big” part was a new thing for me.  For some reason, I have always stayed away from stacked/tiered cakes.  The dowels, oh how they frightened me.

A year ago I made a 2-tiered castle cake for my 8-year-old daughter’s birthday.

And while it turned out cute, I didn’t support it correctly, and it ended up leaning.  Tilting.  Almost falling.  It was not a pretty sight.

So when my friend said she wanted three (that’s 3) tiers, I said sure, then hung up the phone and proceeded to panic.  And the party wasn’t for 2 months.  That’s a long time to stress about a cake.

As it turned out, my family ended up being out of town during the party, so I came home early, which meant a quiet, child-free house for 2 days. (How’s that for a run-on sentence).  It took me longer to do it than it probably should have, but I was trying to be careful since I didn’t have time to re-do anything.  And the dowels – I won’t even tell you how many of those things I used.  Can we say “overkill”?

I tried 2 new cake recipes for it (since mine were too soft to hold up tiers).  A white cake from I Am Baker and a chocolate fudge groom’s cake from Wilton.  They were yummy.

But it turned out fine.  No leaning or tilting.  And the birthday girl was thrilled.

My 5-year-old daughter has a birthday coming up.  I think a good sheet cake would be perfect.