Free Video Tip: Choose the Correct Pedestal Cake Stand

In this free video tip, Maggie Austin ( instructor of the online Bluprint cake design and decorating class, Fondant Frills) walks you through what you should look for and watch out for when you’re choosing a pedestal cake stand. The right pedestal or platform can perfect the presentation. The wrong one? Well, that could spell trouble!

Video transcript:

Hi, I’m Maggie Austin, an instructor on Bluprint.com. My class is Fondant Frills. Here are a few tips on how to select a pedestal cake stand for your cake.

So I want to start off by telling you what I think of as the ideal. Sure, you can use just your wooden board that your cake is sitting right down on. That’s totally fine. It’s a really easy, safe way to do it. I personally love a pedestal stand because it gets your cake up off the table. It just gives some elegance to your creation. So I always display my cakes on a pedestal stand.

So the one you can see here is solid. It’s a wood, painted cake stand. And the base is attached to the platform. It’s one solid piece. It’s not two pieces. That’s important to note if somebody’s going to be picking up the cake. If they’re expecting to pick up the entire stand, and they just end up lifting the top platform right off, that could be a surprise and maybe not a good one.

So the other thing to note about this is that it has a completely flat surface. This allows me, if I’m working with a multiple-tiered cake (which I most often am), I can take the cake and I can slide it directly on the top of the pedestal, and into place: right into center. So that is the easiest and safest way for me to get my cake on to the pedestal.

On this side of the table, we have a few don’ts. The first one, we’ll do the obvious. Give it a wiggle. This one is definitely not secure. You can see that wobble. It could be that when you place your cake, it slants one way. Then you’ll have a leaning cake, which nobody wants to do. So that’s one to avoid.

This one here is not so bad. Of the three offenders here, this is the least of them. We have just a little bit of a lip right on the outside of our flat base. So if I were to go ahead and take my cake and slide it on, there would be a slight dip as I would slide. So I would probably not use this pedestal if I have a multiple-tiered cake. I might use this if I have just a single tier, and I can really get some leverage and just place it on center, rather than having to slide a heavier option.

Last, we have this one, which I have to say, I love the color. But this is more like a dinner plate. I’ll tilt it so you can see. So, if you were to be buying this pedestal online and seeing the dimensions, you would see the measurement from all the way across. But the actual indent where your cake could go is much, much smaller. So you definitely don’t want that kind of surprise when you have a ten-inch cake that you’re planning on placing, and you only have room for a seven-inch cake. So those are just a few things to think about when you’re picking out a pedestal to compliment your cake.

I hope you join me for my class, Fondant Frills, where we talk a little bit more about display.