I am so completely NEW here. I am hoping someone can help me. A friend's son loves anything to do with tornados. So for his upcoming birthday I want to make a cake with a tornado scene....making the tornado with stacked cake. Can I use straws to support the tornado as it will be sitting on top of a sheet cake or will I need wooden dowels that are secured to the board the cake will be on?

I googled Tornado cakes and the only thing I can find are some instructions to making the cake I have described where the user used dowels and secured them to the board. I really don't want to have to do this but I also don't want the cake to fall either.

I am also wondering if I should do pound cake or will regular cake mix work?

Any help you can offer will be greatly appreciated as I said I am very new here.....my first post!

Sounds very cool! Can you post a photo of the cake you are trying to do? That might help a bit. How big is the tornado?

Is this the how to you found?

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.offroaders.com/info/tornado-cake/Img_8536.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.offroaders.com/info/Tornado-Cake.htm&usg=__8ln90eeVn_98VRF49-mSkqzjeGM=&h=800&w=600&sz=147&hl=en&start=3&um=1&tbnid=1P2o2YS6CS7wsM:&tbnh=143&tbnw=107&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dtornadoe%2Bcake%2Bpics%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1B2GGIC_enCA225CA225%26sa%3DX%26um%3D1

As pp mentioned it might help if you posted a pic of the cake you are trying to do.

it will be very hard to keep it from just falling over it you don't put at least one dowel rod coming up from the board

because it narrows down, there is not enough support to balance... it's standing tippy-toe on just one foot if you will and needs at least a central dowel.

note: he didn't put boards every two layers, just stacked the cake. If you use boards then can get away with one central dowel.

if you don't mind bulges from settling -- which on a tornado would look just a part of the mess -- then skip the boards and do the two dowels.

One more question. My friend is also planning to have cupcakes so I could get away with a much smaller cake. If I cut the size of this in half can I get away with using straws or wooden dowels through the tornado as opposed to a support being fixed to the cake board?

highly doubtful -- as it is sitting on a POINT, not a wide flat base.

doing the central dowel up from base is very easy.

for this small of a cake:

• get wood or wood product (MDF, plywood) base (he used a cutting board -- those are inexpensive, especially if get one from a thrift/second-hand store or rummage/garage/yard/tag sale
  
  
• get a dowel and put a sharp point on the end that will not go in the board so it pushes through the cake easily with least tearing (he didn't do that -- which is why he had one tier split. If your cake is small enough, may be able to use one of the cake dowels Wilton sells for supporting cakes internally.
  
  
• measure diameter of dowel and drill a hole in the wood base. get it to be exact size of dowel or a skosh smaller (like 1/32 of inch) - but not larger or it will wobble -- easy to do -- just match dowel end to end of drill bit that goes in drill (the solid end) -- can easily see which is larger. if close, run fingers over the place the touch, will feel which is larger. be sure the dowel is ever so slightly larger -- it will compress when you pound it in with a hammer.
  
  
• add a dollop of carpenter's glue in the hole
  
  
• push/pound the dowel into the hole.
  
  
• trim dowel to length just before you put on the last layer - want it to stop in middle of that tier.

Thank you so much for all of your help. I am looking forward to the challenge!!!!

I did a similar cake, but Munckinland (I haven't posted it yet.)
I did the base of the cake as cake, then did Rice Krispie treats for the tornado. I iced in grey royal icing, leaving it spackled-looking. I feel that really gave it that "wild" look. I screwed a dowel through the base board sticking up and formed the still gooey RKT mix around it to a shape I liked. Then I made various fondant and gumpaste animals, furniture (and black & white striped socks with ruby slippers) on wire and put them through the tornado. Then I messed up the icing where the tornado had run through the cake.

This was my inspiration cake:
http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-photo_1290433.html