Cake Toppers That Stay Upright: A Short Guide

A topper that leans in every photo is almost never a flimsy topper. It is one of three things: the icing was too soft, the stick went in at an angle, or it was placed too early. All three are easy to get right.

Buttercream, fondant and whipped cream behave differently

Buttercream is the forgiving one. It holds a stick well once it has been in the fridge for twenty minutes, and it lets you reposition without leaving an obvious hole.

Fondant is firm on top and soft underneath. A stick pushed straight through often keeps going and the topper sinks. Make a small slit first with a knife tip, then slide the stick in — you want the fondant gripping the flat of the stick, not the point.

Whipped cream will not hold anything heavy. With a whipped-cream cake, use the smallest pieces you have and place them at the edge where the cake underneath gives support, not in the middle.

Straight in, not at an angle

The instinct is to angle the topper towards the camera. Do not — an angled stick has less resistance in the icing and slowly rotates flat as the icing warms. Push it in vertically and rotate the topper on the stick if you need it to face a certain way.

Depth: about a third of the stick. Deeper looks tempting but on a shallow cake you hit the board, the stick stops, and the topper is left standing on the board rather than gripped by icing.

Place it last, not first

Cardboard toppers are laminated and they do not like a fridge. Fifteen minutes is fine; two hours and the edges start absorbing moisture and curling. Ice the cake, chill it, and put the topper in on the way to the table.

Scale is what makes it look arranged

One large topper on a big cake reads as sparse. The reason multi-piece sets look better in photos is not quantity, it is that they mix sizes: something large in the centre, mid-size pieces around it, small figures at the front or in the cupcakes.

As a rough guide, the main piece should be about a third of the cake's width. Our 13-piece gamer set is built this way — a 6 × 6.8 in centrepiece with figures at 2.3–3 in that sit correctly in a cupcake instead of swamping it.

Cupcakes need a different shape

Detailed illustrations turn to mush at an inch across, so a topper drawn for a cake rarely works on a cupcake. What you want is a set that includes genuinely small pieces with bold, simple shapes — the seven-figure set tops out at 1.7 in per figure for exactly this. If you are buying for cupcakes specifically, look at how the smallest piece is drawn, not how the big one looks.

Quick checklist

• Chill the iced cake before placing.
• Slit fondant first; push straight down, about a third of the stick.
• Place last, not hours ahead.
• Mix sizes — one big piece, several small.

The full range is in Cake Toppers.