I'm making my first tiered cake in a week or so and am wondering on dowl rods. Do I need to put some in for a 2 tiered cake? The bottom tier will be 9" and the top will be 6". I will be traveling less than 1 mile from my home with this cake.

Thanks!

Yep. You need them. You'll need dowels in the bottom to support the top. And you'll need on down through the center to keep the tiers together.

Or you can use SPS. Leah has all the info on that!

You absolutely need supports for a stacked cake for stability. I use bubble tea straws for support. Wooden dowels are difficult to cut straight. I've done 4 tier wedding cakes and used bubble tea straws with no problems at all.

Thanks for the responses. Where can I find bubble tea straws?

Just a warning...my first cake was tiered - 8" bottom/6"on top...I thought 3 dowels would be fine, since the 6" aren't that big.

You can see what happend on this thread (scroll down): http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=661148&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=decorated&&start=15

I would never use less than four on a 6", so it's balanced.

Hi, i dowels each tier with wooden dowels or bubble tea straws, but i also put the long pointed dowel thru these 2 tiers on into the cake board . Or i use the sps system. I would never deliver one not supported with the long pointed wooden dowel thru it, unless of course i am using the sps system. I would never take that chance, even with it being secured some with the buttercream. even with fondant stacked cakes. i use the wooden pointed dowel down thru the center. some people just use r/i to secure these two tiers. and not the long wooden dowels. we all do things different. that is ok!! But we need to make sure our cakes are safe for traveling, not matter the distance.

I use bubble tea straws too, they are great!
I know a lot of people also use SPS but I can't buy it here...
And I always get use them for any size tiered cakes..
Cake does not support cake, words to live by.. lol
Jodi

what is SPS?

Single Plate Separator and the instructions are around page 15:
http://cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-603925-sps.html

I know this is probably a dumb question and I have the bubble tea straws, but my question is do you just cut the straws and put them thru the tier withou connecting to anything--like the cake circles? Then place the tier on top of that?

Yes, the boba tea straws are done just like a dowel rod.

See this but of course without the pillars:
http://cakecentral.com/articles/107/building-the-cake-combination-pillar-stacked-construction

I buy straws from ebay, super cheap.