Pillars - Disasters/successes - Come In
Decorating By sjbeatty8 Updated 19 Aug 2007 , 5:51pm by auntginn
Im doing my first pillared cake and need advice..
I have a 14" bottom with 10" and 6" ..... im using the Wilton pillar with plate system.... will it be supportive enough with just the pillars?? if not how do I support it more???
HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I want to hear all the pillar disasters or successes so that I know what to expect..
Thanks!
Correct .... the plate/pillar really has nothing to do with it. It's all in the doweling system. The only thing I can add is make sure your pillars fit your plates. Not all plates/pillars are created equal (she said after learning it the hard way!)!
Here's a thread where I have a pic on cutting dowels:
http://forum.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-434013-dowels.html
For extra security, you can mark the placement of the pillars with the cake plate legs, then hot glue the legs to the plate to make a table. This works especially well with the Wilton push-in pillars, the grecian ones, which have a tapered, smaller bottom.
Then push the table into the cake at the marks.
I use the push in pillars quite frequently and NEVER had a problem with slippage. According to the books and websites I have looked at the push in pillars are more stable than balancing separator plates on doweled cakes. The cake surrounding the push in pillars adds stability.
I just did my first pillar construction cake yesterday with push in pillars (I uploaded a picture but I have no idea how to post it in here!). One problem I had was stupidly cutting the one layer too small so the pillars were kind of close to the edge of the cake. Otherwise it was stable and everything, no real problems. It was a bit tricky getting the top plate on the pillars, but I had someone guide me and it worked out nicely 
Good luck with your cake!
My advice (from experience) Just use the right size plates. ie., 10 inch cake, 10 inch plate. Years ago I wanted to be cheep and not buy the proper size plates. the cake looked lopsided and the guest thought it was going to fall. Would have been great as a topsy turvey cake, if they were popular at the time. The cake held up but made people nervous.
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