Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A

Hi everyone, I’ve been asked to make a cake similar to this
http://cakes-by-paula.co.uk/?gallery=christening-cakes – its the train christening cake at the bottom of the page. My question is does anyone know where to buy a cake stand like this one, only it needs to hold 30 cupcakes and take the weight of a two tier cake – Is there a company that hires them out and posts them? thanks in advance x

Hi michellejones

if I’m looking at the right picture, I think that isn’t a stand, the cupcakes are sitting on a cake drum, the tiers are stacked in the normal way and mounted on pillars. There is this kind of stand http://www.posdisplayshop.co.uk/product-309/3-tier-heavy-duty-cake-stand—clear-acrylic—bps0008.html which will take a tiered cake at the top and cupcakes at the bottom. x

Hi MIWL, thank you. I’ve had a look and the biggest bottom tier they do doesn’t hold 30 cupcakes. If I used cake drums like the picture, do you know how I’d attach the pillars so they would be secure or any other ideas you might have 🙂 x

Double sides pads that you use for putting hooks on walls in hardware shops would do it

Hi michellejones

The way I would do this is by having a central support ie a dummy stuck down on the base board to support the top tiers. You can still have the illusion of pillars under the top board. This way you could use a big enough board to place on your 32 cupcakes. Another way would be to screw the pillars into the board some how ( perhaps hubby could do that for you?). The company in the link I gave earlier will make bespoke towers. They’re not very expensive with what they have already. It may be worth having a chat with them to see if they could utilise a larger existing base, which could accommodate 32+ cupcakes. Have a look at loobianca’s solution to a problem she had here http://www.cakeflix.com/questions/weight-on-cake-drums. It’s not exactly the same dilemma but you may be able to some get ideas from it. I wonder whether contacting Paula cakes for advice would throw some light? As it stands I wouldn’t trust the pillars to hold without some kind of support. I hope some of this helps and hopefully other members will be able to advise too. x