Hi guys

this is the first time Im doing a stacked cake and I know this might be over ambitious. but its for my husband's 30th and this is the cake he wanted and I don't want to disappoint him.

as you can see fro the pic (link below) all the cakes  are the same size , so I thought of doing it with 9" cakes and 12" boards for the reels . but im worried about stacking it like this and was wondering what is the best way to support it and stop it from crushing the cake underneath and from slipping off.

Thanks in advance

http://image.naldzgraphics.net/2012/10/3-cinema-film-movie-popcorn-unusual-cake-design-cool.jpg

Yes it's crazily over ambitious but it's for your husband and he will love you no matter what!

You will need a central dowel for this cake and thread each of the film reels onto the dowel slightly offset from each other. Don't forget to add dowels to each tier/film reel as well - if they are sandwiched by boards, then you should dowel the cake before you put the top board on the reel.

I hope this makes sense. This will be a lot of cake at the size you plan - so I hope you have a lot of mouths to feed! 

It looks like the black casing layers may just be fondant covered foam core boards.  I would stack like any regular cake with dowels between each of the layers.  as long as the overlap goes past the center of each cake, and there is a dowel under  (or just past) the center point of each I think it should work fine.  The next layer up will counterbalance it.  You could also overlap just a little more  than shown and it would still look awesome but be a bit more stable.   As mentioned above - for extra security you could sharpen a dowel and hammer it down through the center of the whole thing at the end.  I do that often when transporting tall stacked cakes.  If you are really handy, you could make a support structure that  snaps or screws together.