If you want a cake that looks taller than a stacked cake, you might want to add pillars or columns between the tiers, or between some of them, and add flowers between the spaces for color.
By adding pillars you can increase the height between the cake tiers and easily make the cake 3″ to 12″ taller, depending on the height of the columns.
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Three tier wedding cakes with pillars.
Square buttercream wedding cake.
This square wedding cake was iced in buttercream and had piped dots on each tier.
The flowers between the tiers were made from gumpaste in autumn colors.
For most of these cakes I used push-through pillars, which are the most secure as long as you insert them perfectly straight up-and-down into the cake.
These were the 6″ pillars, so they left a little room to place the flowers between the tiers.
To see prices for different types of cake pillars, click here to go to Amazon: Cake Pillars
Piped buttercream flowers and royal icing baby’s breath.
This pretty buttercream cake had white gumpaste roses, royal icing baby’s breath, and piped lily-of-the-valley designs on the side of the tiers.
The flowers filled up the space between the tiers, which is the look that I like best.
Buttercream swirls with gumpaste flowers.
I did a lot of piped buttercream cakes with different types of swirls and dots.
This one also had gumpaste roses, callas, and hydrangeas to fill in the gaps created by the pillars.
For more pink wedding cakes, click here.
Fresh and gumpaste flowers on buttercream.
This buttercream wedding cake had piped swirls, fondant pearls, and gumpaste flowers.
It also had a fresh roses arrangement for the cake topper that matched the bride’s bouquet.
A cascade of gumpaste snowflakes.
I made this pillared wedding cake with gumpaste snowflakes by creating pieces that were stuck to each other that I attached to the cake while I set it up at the reception site.
For anything that’s fragile, it’s better to set it up when you deliver it.
Moving a tall cake with pillars in one piece is NEVER a good idea!
Piped buttercream with gumpaste tulips.
Pink gumpaste tulips filled in the space between the tiers of this pretty wedding cake.
You can read about how to make gumpaste tulips in this article: How to make unwired gumpaste tulips.
Buttercream dots and scrolls with gumpaste flowers.
Another piped scrolls and dots cake, this one had blue and yellow gumpaste flowers.
Hand-painted Monet waterlilies-inspired wedding cake.
For this pillared wedding cake I painted the design onto it using colored buttercream, and I added gumpaste waterlilies and lily pads to the tiers.
I hid the pillars by leaning lily pads up against them to disguise them a little.
4 tier wedding cakes with pillars.
If you need more wedding cake servings, these four-tiered cakes will give you more cake for your reception, and the pillars can add even more height to the cake.
Plain buttercream wedding cake with fresh roses between the tiers.
This wedding cake was minimalist and extravagant at the same time.
The plain white tiers were the base, and the fresh red roses were the embellishment.
This cake used about 9 dozen red roses in various stages of open-ness. If they had been really open it would have used less, but make sure that you have extras to work with if you want this look!
Plain buttercream cake tiers with royal icing snowflakes.
On this winter wedding cake the pillars were hidden by the royal icing snowflakes that I piped to fit around the spaces between the tiers.
For more wedding cakes with snowflakes, click here.
Tall pillars with gumpaste flowers.
For this tall wedding cake, the pillars were the plate-and-pillar system that gives you a solid plate on either end, with pillars in between.
This system tends to be a little less stable than the push-through pillars, so I wouldn’t use it to support a lot of weight.
The top tier is fine, but I would choose the push-through system for lower tiers!
Lace wrap borders and gumpaste flowers.
For this wedding cake I used a fondant lace mold like these: Lace molds on Amazon.
These come in a lot of designs, and they make a pretty border at the base of a cake tier.
I added gumpaste dogwood flowers and hydrangeas to fill in the space between the tiers.
Silver fondant ribbons and gumpaste calla lilies.
The bride wanted silver on her cake, and I added it on the fondant ribbons and the center of the gumpaste calla lilies.
The borders of the cake were ropes that were made from fondant, and I made fondant rope bows that attached and dangled down between the tiers.
Those were dried hard before I added them to the cake to make sure they would be stable in the space between the tiers!
Silk flowers with buttercream piping.
This buttercream piped cake had silk flowers and ivy between the tiers and around the cake.
Royal icing flowers on hexagonal wedding cake tiers.
This purple hexagonal wedding cake had royal icing flowers that were modeled after wisteria between the tiers.
There were more flowers on the top in a silver topper.
Green bands with gumpaste orchids.
This green fondant ribbon and piped buttercream wedding cake had gumpaste orchids between the tiers..
They provided a ruffly contrast to the straight striped and piping.
Strings of isomalt jewels.
This buttercream cake had strings of isomalt and gumpaste jewels draped on the tiers.
I’m not going to lie, this cake was hard to set up.
It ended up taking me over an hour and a half to get it all assembled because the jewels had to be placed carefully on the tiers, and the buttercream didn’t want to support the weight of the beads and would get squashed.
You can’t see it, but there was a system of hooks that I made from plastic that were on the tiers that were holding the jewel strings in place.
It was worth the time that it took, because I’ve never seen another cake that was done like this that was also buttercream, which is tricker to work with than fondant is.
Purple gumpaste callas on buttercream.
This cute cake had purple callas and purple fondant bands at the base of the tiers.
The designs on the side were piped in buttercream.
Stenciled wedding cake with gumpaste orchids.
This cake was stenciled in buttercream and had vines made from gumpaste orchids and filler flowers draped on the tiers.
Piped buttercream cake with red roses.
This simple wedding cake had a vining pattern piped around the tiers, and had red roses on the cake and between the pillars.
Plain tiers with gumpaste callas and ivy.
This fondant wedding cake had burgundy callas and green gumpaste ivy on the tiers.
The ivy was draped on the tiers to cascade down the sides of the cake.
Buttercream with tall pillars and gumpaste flowers.
This tall pillared wedding cake also had gumpaste ivy draping on the tiers.
It also used the fondant rope borders around the base of each tier, with gumpaste roses and hydrangeas.
Plain buttercream tiers with gumpaste roses.
This pillared cake had pink gumpaste roses and green gumpaste leaves as a contrasting color on the tiers.
Fondant draping on buttercream with gumpaste dogwoods.
This buttercream cake with fondant draping had gumpaste dogwoods, for an interesting departure from the usual roses!
Fondant ribbons with gumpaste flowers.
This four-tiered pillared cake had a bunch of Spring flowers in shades of pink and purple.
Pale orange buttercream with fondant ribbons.
This buttercream cake was a light orange color, and there were bows and orange gumpaste roses to match the piped icing.
The topper for this one went under the top tier instead of on it, and there was a piped monogram on the top tier.
5-tier wedding cakes with pillars.
For larger wedding receptions you might need a 5-tier wedding cake, or you might just want the drama of a taller cake.
Depending on how tall the pillars are, you could easily have a cake that’s an additional 24 inches tall if you add pillars between each tier.
Chocolate and purple callas wedding cake.
Chocolate is always good for the inside of a wedding cake, but the outside can also use it!
This cake had chocolate icing, chocolate curls, and purple callas on the tiers.
Glittery fondant ribbons with fresh flowers.
This white buttercream wedding cake had fondant ribbons that had sanding sugar on them to make it look glittery.
The fresh flowers between each tier covered the pillars, and the top of the cake had the toss bouquet on it.
Tiered cheesecake wedding cake with fresh greenery.
This was actually a cheesecake wedding cake…Each cheesecake was on a separate platform, and they were iced with Italian meringue buttercream to make it look like a “normal” cake.
I had a couple come to a tasting appointment and the groom started talking about a wedding they had been to at the same reception venue where there was a cheesecake wedding cake, and he said that people were lining up to get seconds.
I showed him this picture and he said “That was it!”
So yes, you can do cheesecake for a wedding cake, and you can stack them if you do it the right way.
6-tier wedding cake with gumpaste flowers.
I’ll add this cake at the end…It’s technically 6 tiers, but the top tier was fake and made ahead of time.
I made the gumpaste flowers to cover up the spaces between the tiers, and the pillars were as tall as I could safely make them.
This was for a bride who said that the most important thing about her reception was that she wanted a really, really big cake. This one delivered, at about 3 1/2 feet tall once everything was added in.
