Cake International returned to the NEC Birmingham from 6 to 8 November with more than 1,000 competition entries from over 35 countries, and most of the online chatter has been about sculpture and life-size installations. For anyone making wedding cakes, the more useful Cake International display ideas sit elsewhere: in the wedding classes, in who took the Wedding Cake Artist of the Year title, and in how the strongest tiered cakes are being held up and staged. These are the shapes, finishes and structural choices we are taking into 2027, and what each one asks of the stand, spacer and architectural support underneath.
Hand-piped detail is taking over the surface
Suzanne Thorp of The Frostery was named Wedding Cake Artist of the Year at this year's Cake & Bake International Awards. Her recent wedding cakes are ivory, tall and quiet at first glance, then full of hand-piped scrollwork, lace and tone-on-tone piping that only shows when the light catches it. She has described royal icing as something that does not always need to be bold and structural, and soft scalloped edges are a good example of what she means.
That matters for the whole cake centrepiece, because fine piping is read up close and handled with care. A slim, tall proportion suits it, which means the cake plinth or stand needs a footprint that frames the bottom tier without competing with it. Decorators should also think about where hands will go when the cake is lifted, since delicate piping tends to sit right where people want to grip.
Visible support as part of the design
The most useful lesson for display came from cakes that stopped hiding their support. A gold open-frame separator lifts a decorative tier above a ruffled, gold-lined reveal, while a mirrored gold plinth holds the whole wedding cake above a ground-level florals arrangement.
Cake by Zeynas Cakes.
Open frames and clear spacers change the load path, so the weight of the top tier travels through the frame rather than through the cake beneath it. The frame, the board it sits on and the tier below all need to agree, and it is worth asking your decorator to confirm what the separator is designed to carry before the design is finalised. Gold stands and separators and ultra-polished acrylic spacers both suit this approach, and the finish should be chosen with the venue lighting in mind, since polished metal and clear acrylic pick up the room around them.
Living flowers built into the base
Forecasts for 2027 weddings, including one from Easy Weddings, point to upgraded display styling such as custom plinths and clear acrylic boxes, and this is where that idea gets practical. Storeybook Cakes shows it on a tiered cake in black and white, with clear acrylic spacers between the tiers and a ring of tube vases around the base holding fresh anemones, ranunculus and wax flower.
Cake by Storeybook Cakes.
The florals sit outside the cake, so the cake maker and florist need to agree early on water, stem length and how the stems are kept clear of the icing. A fillable base keeps that conversation simple, and our fillable acrylic tiers and stands are built for the same idea. The wafer paper and skeleton leaves climbing the tiers add height without weight, which keeps the structural load where the architectural support can handle it.
Dark, gilded and low-lit
Wilde Cake Studio, our November 2026 PropStar, took the opposite route to the ivory classics. This five-tier black wedding cake has cracked gold leaf, ruffled sugar roses, a drape of black satin and pink lilies rising from the top tier.
Cake by Wilde Cake Studio, our November 2026 PropStar.
A cake this dark needs a stand that stays out of the way, and the slim black hairpin legs of The Pinnacle do that, with only the gold tips catching light. The practical check is the stand's footprint against the cake's height, because five tiers on narrow legs raise the centre of gravity. Floor surface, table level and how many people will pass close to the cake all belong in that decision, particularly in a dimly lit historic venue where nobody sees a trip hazard coming.
Floating tiers with a soft, painted finish
The gentlest idea in this set is also the most structural. Zoë Clark Cakes, one of our PropStars, shows tiers hand-painted with roses and set apart on a floating illusion, with sugar peonies and garden roses cascading through the gap and a wafer paper skirt at the base.
Cake by Zoë Clark Cakes, a Prop Options PropStar.
The Floating Side Bar is the PropSecure separator behind this look, and the flower cascade does a second job by drawing the eye across the gap so the support reads as part of the design. A floating tier carries its weight off-centre, so base and top plate sizes, separator pins and the tier below all need to be matched before the cake is built.
What to settle before you sketch the next cake
Across all five ideas the surface is only half of the decision. The piping, the flowers, the finish and the support are designed together now, and the stand or plinth is chosen at the sketch stage rather than added at the end. Where a design needs height without the weight, a reeded faux tier is one way to build the silhouette first and work out the real cake around it.
Start your 2027 designs with the support. Decide where the load travels, how the stand sits in the room and what will be visible, and the finish you choose will have something solid to sit on.
