Right now I am working on a cake that is 1 very tall tier. It's 4, 1 1/2" layers of cake and stands with icing about 8 inches tall.

I think it will be okay, I'm just a little bit nervous about it shifting during delivery. I'm letting it chill really good right for the next several hours so its nice and cold before it goes in the car.

Would a wooden dowel do any good down the center and into the drum? I was talking to my husband and he seems to think that with it just being 1 tall tier it wouldn't make any difference, Basically I just want to prove him wrong and I of course don't want a shifted cake to deliver.

I had thought about separating the layers into two's with a round and doing the normal support for a stacked cake, but didn't think it was neccesary.

What is your experience with tall tiers and what works for you??

A center dowel couldn't hurt. I have not stacked that many cakes though so I dont know. I would definitely chill it though.

Anything taller than 6 inches is pretty dangerous - especially with so many layers of potentially slippery filling.

I would have divided the cake with one board and dowels not only for stability but for ease of serving. Those are going to be some very TALL slices of cake!

If you're not going to divide the cake, I'd suggest driving two dowels all the way through rather than one. That would offer extra protection.

Is it already all stacked? I would suggest that after 3 or 4 layers of cake, you dowel and then put in another cardboard plate for supports. It should be just like doweling a tiered cake, only the tiers are exactly the same size. Does that make sense?

Generally speaking, a cardboard and some type of support goes in every 4".