Ok, time to pull out the all the cake stops! Now, these cakes can be intimidating, and I won’t lie, I’m still always nervous my cake will fall in or over.  However, it has never happened and I rarely even use supports, so I think tiered cakes are totally do-able for us amateurs.  So, here’s how it works for me:

1) Make cake mixes according to recipe directions and fill your  chosen baking pans.  I typically use 10inch, 8inch and 6 inch rounds, although I also have done square & heart shapes as well.   

• For the squares, I use a rectangle pan or square pan & cut to size for the different tiers (I eye-ball it or measure with ruler). 
  
• For the heart shapes, I usually just cut the heart shape out of the circle cake. To do this, take a paper towel and cut to the size of your round cake, then fold it in half and draw half a heart and cut it out. Now you have a nice heart shape.  Pin the heart template to the top of the cake with toothpicks and cut the cake to the shape (if your cake is two layer, fill the layer and refrigerate before cutting to the shape preferred).

2) Once baked & cooled, level your cakes with a cake leveler (I do not recommend trying to eye-ball) and either torte (split) your layers and fill, or just start stacking and crumb coating.  If you did want to shape your tiers, do this prior to torting or frosting.
 

Do I need to use cake layer supports?  Every book, website and TV show I’ve ever watched says you must use supports when making a tiered cake. However, I’ve only used supports in 2 of my tiered cakes and all the non-supported cakes were just fine.  I think my cakes do not need supports because I use buttercream to frost (which is not as heavy as fondant covered cakes), and sometimes do not torte my tiers so there is no extra filling (again, making it less heavy).  I usually just stack the layers, crumb-coat, frost the cake & refrigerate. I do love offsetting the layers so they line up all along the back of the cake vs. stacking in the traditional center. If you do want to support your cake (& I do when the cake seems super heavy as with my carrot cake with the big yellow bow), simply cut a cake board to the size of your cake tier, pound skewer sticks into the cake tier it will rest on, where you want it to rest, cut skewers to size & reinsert in the bottom tier. Now you are ready to stack your cake board supported tier on top of the tier with the skewers.
 

3) Once stacked & crumb-coated, refrigerate for awhile (whatever time you have, be it 30 minutes or overnight...I’ve not refrigerated before but I’d recommend doing so).

4) Remove the cake from ‘fridge and then frost entire cake with your base color using your frosting spatula. 
 

Do I stack my cake and then frost the whole thing, or frost each tier separately and then stack?  Some sources recommend frosting each tier separately, letting them set-up in the ’fridge and then stacking.  While I have done it that way before, I find just stacking, crumb-coating and then frosting the whole thing works well enough for me, and it’s less time consuming. 
 

5) If possible, let your base frosting set-up in the ‘fridge for 30 minutes or so and then start decorating using your preferred colors and decorations.  Some ideas:

Smoothing your Buttercream:  It is hard to get buttercream super smooth on each layer and on the edges.  Just remember, use lots of frosting and scrape it off for a smooth effect.  Using a warm spatula (dip it in warm water and dry off) to smooth sometimes works as well.  Mine are never perfect but no-one seems to notice!  See Decorating FAQ’s for more details.

Poured chocolate ganache frosting: I simply poured runny ganache all down the cake and let it set up...how indulgent was that one!  See Recipes for more details.
-Borders: It is nice to pipe a border where the bottom tier meets the cake board and where the cake tiers meet each other.  If you’re not fancy, or you have no tips, just do a simple dot border (call it a pearl border and everyone will be so impressed).  If you have some time, you can experiment with lots of different kinds (see Decorating FAQ’s for more ideas!).

Embellishing your cake:  There are lots of ways to further decorate a cake once your frosting is done, including: fresh flowers, fresh fruit, fondant flowers & bows  & other shapes, and chocolate shapes (either free-form or molded).  Fresh flowers are especially nice at an event where you can match them with centerpieces and such.  Fresh Fruit is so yummy and can be left plain or made sugared for a holiday look. Fondant flowers, bows or other decorations always wow. Chocolate shapes are always an elegant and indulgent embellishment!  And take heart, adding fondant and chocolate decorations to your cake is really not as hard as it appears, so see Decorating FAQ’s for directions on making fondant bows & ribbons & more, and for making molded and free-form chocolate shapes! And remember, you can use your simply buttercream and make amazing decorations....just see the flowered vine cakes which were just piped on with buttercream.  they were such a hit I made lots of cakes & cupcakes with this design simply based on the initial picture I posted on this site!  So go for it...you can make an awesome tiered cake!