Do you really just sharpen a dowel & hammer it right through all the tiers, like some vampire cake slayer? (Sorry, too much Buffy at a young age.) I have made wedding cakes but they were all covered in fondant & I travel with them separated. This time it is all BC & I guess I will have to travel with it assembled? I was going to put a dowel all the way through for a central support. BUT I am leery to go hammering some wooden stake through the heart of my cake. ( ) Any tips would be much appreciated. TIA!

yes, it is really that easy, the cake boards soften with the moisture of the cake so, a sharpened wooden dowel goes in very easy, i actually use a butter knife most of the time to tap into place. once in a great while, i will have to use a small meat mallot to tap. very easy to do.

Not with the last cakeboards I bought, they were made of wood, not cardboard, but that is here in Asia

I have always wondered how people do this without the whole cake collapsing from hammering,in the UK we use wooden boards or even the light grocery cake boards are not easy, there is no way a sharpened dowell is going through without damage.But good luck anyway.

Yup!! The zebra cake in my photos is done that way and its iced in bc! Once stacked I just sharpened the dowel then used a small meat pounder thingy (probably not the official word lol) to gently tap the dowel into place.

Edited to add:.........I too love Buffy

Mystery solved, i had no idea until I compared the boards I bought whilst in the US and those I got here or in Birmingham. No way would the dowel go through the wooden ones, I would need a drill.The cardboard ones, ok, although even then I would be breaking out in a sweat

Well, I did it! I staked the cake! You should have seen the look on my families face when I they saw me come at the cake with a sharpened stick & a hammer. But it was as easy as everyone said! Just wanted to say thank you!

and when you sharpen the dowel it's nothing more than just sharpening a pencil. I use a pencil sharpener that has never touched anything else. I measure the dowel to about the middle of the top cake from the cake board and cut with a pipe cutter, then press it through the middle of the cake. When I come to the board I use my hammer, and when the top of the dowel is level with the cake I place another dowel rod on top and tap with the hammer and cover the hole with my icing.