I love the Wilton hidden pillars for a stacked cake. If you did a 12 & 8 cake - you would need a 9" Wilton cake plate and a package of Wilton hidden pillars. After the cake is baked/iced, lightly put the plate on the frosting to mark where to put the pillars. Insert one pillar to get the height you need, cut the rest of the pillars to this same size. Insert pillars in cake and place the feet on the 9" plate in the pillars. There is no other dowels needed as these pillars are very sturdy plastic.
I have been using this system for over 14 years and have never had a single problem. You should be able to find the hidden pillars any place that you get your Wilton supplies. Here is the description of them.
Wilton 6" Hidden Pillars 4 Pack
Description
Size: 6" Tall
Pkgd. 4
Separate cake tiers slightly and create a floating illusion. Pushed into cake tiers as dowel rods, they fit onto all white separator plates except Tall tier. Trimmable, hollow plastic.
Hope this helps - these cost more than the dowels from Wal-Mart but to me it is money well spent - gives me more peace of mind.
Topaz176
Thanks - I'm just figuring out how to post the photos.
The sqaure with the silver ribbon - I used the hidden pillars and a plastic plate. The stacked packages I used the hidden pillars and used cardboard under all the layers. I just used a regular cake coated cake pad under all but the base. That one is on a piece of plywood.
I have never tried to decorate with fondant. I tasted it once & didn't like it, so I won't use it. But I love using regular ribbon.
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