Hello everybody! I'm new to this site and I love it! Anyway, i have a few questions about cake stacking. Im making a two tiered minnie mouse cake for a birthday party. It's supposed to feed 100 people!!!! I thought of making a 16" botom tier and 12 " top tier and a few cake pops for the kiddos. It will be buttercream and needs to be transported. Is that enough cake for the party? How many dowels should I use for support? And do i need a center dowel to go through entire cake? If so should i prehole to make it easier?
If anyone can help....please please please!!!!

If you want to know how many people your cake will serve, go to this excellent cake calculator posted by metria here on CC:
http://shinymetalobjects.net/cake/calculator/cake_calculator.cgi
The cake you're thinking about will be much too large. A 14" and a 10" would be closer to the mark, although that will give you a little more than you need too. You can forget about the cake pops, unless you really want to make them. There will be enough cake. If it's only two tiers, I wouldn't use a center dowel, but since it's buttercream, I'd think seriously about transporting it unstacked and assembling it there. Five or six supports will be enough , but I have another suggestion there, too: don't use dowels, but straws cut to the proper length (if you can get bubble tea straws, which are wider, that would be good, but I just use regular drinking straws). Straws are sturdy and don't displace as much cake, making the cake less likely to crumple. Good luck with this!

Curious, why would you recommend not transporting a stacked buttercream cake? I've only transported stacked fondant tiers - how does buttercream change the process?

Stacked construction:
http://www.wilton.com/cakes/tiered-cakes/stacked-tiered-cake-construction.cfm
Servings:
http://www.wilton.com/cakes/making-cakes/baking-wedding-cake-2-inch-pans.cfm
156 servings from 16" and 12"... too much for the 100 goal.
A center dowel will help to prevent the tiers from sliding apart from one another during transport... just hammer through all tiers and the one cake circle in between--it's easy.

Ajwonka, I'm just a chicken about buttercream! It takes me forever to do right (and then it doesn't look any too good!), so I try to stack as close to the end of the process as possible so that I can repair anything that happens on the road. I was so happy when people started using fondant on their cakes - my buttercream cakes always looked totally amateurish. Now that I'm turning pro, I'm better at it, but still not great. Sorry about the triple post here. I'd delete the others if I knew how to!

Ajwonka, I'm just a chicken about buttercream! It takes me forever to do right (and then it doesn't look any too good!), so I try to stack as close to the end of the process as possible so that I can repair anything that happens on the road. I was so happy when people started using fondant on their cakes - my buttercream cakes always looked totally amateurish. Now that I'm turning pro, I'm better at it, but still not great.

Ajwonka, I'm just a chicken about buttercream! It takes me forever to do right (and then it doesn't look any too good!), so I try to stack as close to the end of the process as possible so that I can repair anything that happens on the road. I was so happy when people started using fondant on their cakes - my buttercream cakes always looked totally amateurish. Now that I'm turning pro, I'm better at it, but still not great.