Ok....I have to do a graduation cake for tomorrow and everything is going good....I made the cakes and Swiss Buttercream icing....the cakes are supossed to look like stacked books. So here is a question to all of you bakers with some experience with stacking cakes: I have the dowel rods, but when I stack the cakes does there need to be a cake board under it?, If I am using the Swiss Buttercream when I stack the cakes, will it squish the icing out from underneath? This is my first attempt at stacking and I'm a bit nervous, so any advice would be a lot of help. Thanks!

Yes, each "book" should have it's own cake board. If you support each cake correctly, the icing should not squish out ~ because the weight of each cake is on the dowels, not the cake below it.

never done stacked books, but I would consider using some support between each book, otherwise there is no stopping point for the cutter to go off of. You could email CAMBO (she doesn't come on much anymore but still has a member ID) she has done a couple of these and they are awesome. If you go to her member info and there isn't an email, check her website. WWW.cleverconfections.com Her photos should be on there and I know there is a link to contact her.

There are different ways to stack cakes, the most common is to use some kind of dowels or sturdy plastic straws in the bottom tiers and then stack as you go up. I would recommend you use cake boards underneath cake that you're stacking. If you don't have the same sizes you can trim the ones you have to the same size as the cake that's going over it. Dab some SMBC on the board, so that the cake can stick to it.
You can also dowel the whole cake once it's stacked for stability, just sharpen a wooden dowel and gently hammer it through the entire stack of cakes.

HTH

thanks for the advice.....Now with the dowell rods I cut them to the height of the cake, right?

Yes, I usually insert the dowell into the cake where the top tier will cover, mark it with a pen or hold my thumbnail to where it is exactly the height of the frosting, and cut the dowell there.

If your cake is level, you can cut the other dowels to the same height (although mine are never exactly perfectly level), but as long as the dowels are all the same height, the cake on top will be level and it won't be an accidental topsy-turvy cake!

You don't need to go overboard on the number of dowels you use, but for a book cake, I would do probably 4-6 dowels, depending on the size of the book. Just spread out to support the upper tier where you think it would be balanced.

Thanks Monica....this helps alot...I've been so worried that the cake will some how sink when I stack it....I guess it's the nightmare of being a beginner and still experimenting with things....Thanks to the rest of you too for all of your suggestions

Everything you want to know about stacking cakes
http://www.cakecentral.com/article23-Teired-Stacked-Cake-Construction.html