I have read a lot of the other threads on this subject, and the articles too, but I am still not quite getting something. When using dowels, do I have to use cake plates, or can I just use cardboard circles? If I do use cake plates, do the dowels have to line up with the "feet"? And the thing that I am having the hardest time with is cutting the dowels with a clean edge at the right height. I am just really confused as to why it's not working for me. The last several stacked cakes I have made I have not used any dowels and have just crossed my fingers...they have turned out ok, but this time I am doing a 4 tiered cake and I know something will happen if I don't figure out how to dowel it correctly.

I think you could use cake plates, however I use cake boards covered with contact paper ( to reduce moisture absorption).

For the dowels I use a craftsman Handi-cutter which works awesome.put your 1st dowel in and mark its hieght and then cut according to that.

some people use plastic dowels or straws-don't know much about that.


the biggest problem with the cake plates is that unless you pre-drill center holes-you will not be able to drive a center dowel through all your tiers, which i would want to do on a 4 tier cake.


hope this helps-still kinda new at this m yself!!

I love the Wilton hidden pillars. You cut the pillars to the height of the cake, place the next tier on a plastic plastic plate & inster the "feet" in the hidden pillar.

I have never had any problems doing this & have used them for years. I will not go back to wooden dowels. I had several issues with cakes sliding using the dowels.

lisas cakes-how are the plates sized- it seems like i am always cutting the cardboards down- and for example the cake i am doing this weekend i dont want any borders on thetiers-would that be a problem??

Right, like how to you keep the cake plates from sticking out around the edges? And what do you use to cut the plastic pillars?

Use straws instead of dowels! It's so much easier and supports the weight with no problem - I've used them several times with tiered cakes. I also use cake boards covered with contact paper, with a circle of wax paper underneath where it will touch the cake.

Try to make the cake board as small as possible for your cake size. Normally you would want a little clearance for a nice big border, but not this time. Put the straws in the cake, cut them off at the top with kitchen shears. Then, put your cake on top. Last, pipe a border around your top tier. A few weeks ago, I made a tiered cake (8 inch round on top of a 10 inch square). The bottom cake was not level!, so the there was a big gap between the bottom cake and the cake board of my top tier. I just made a extra big double border around the top tier. It looked great and no one knew the difference!

Good Luck!

I'm glad you asked this...I am going to try my first tiered cake probably this weekend...

NOW, what kind of straws are you speaking of, cakesbymom?

This might help:

http://www.cakecentral.com/article23-Teired-Stacked-Cake-Construction.html

http://tinyurl.com/scu64

http://www.countrykitchensa.com/wedding/weddingcakes.htm

Thanks! Those are some good links! The dowels make a lot of sense to me when using cake circles. I was trying to use the plates and I had to line the dowels up with the cake plate feet and then cut the dowels shorter than the cake to make up for the distance that the feet pressed into the cake beneath it. You can imagine why that wasn't working for me.

A question about the straws....I just used regular plastic drinking straws - non-bendable ones. If you have a heavy cake, use more straws. For my cake, I think I used 4 or 5 and one in the center. Hope this helps!!

Thanks for posting this question and thanks to everyone who answered, I'm going to make a 3 tier cake for my family's huge Christmas party and I had nooo idea where to being, I've never made a tiered cake before