i have seen several cake staked with a poll in the center.do they also use seperator plates? if not wont the cakes just crash into each other? an example of this type of cake was on the food network challange enganement cake jason won i believe w/ this type of stacking method.?

You can't use a center dowel with plasic seperator plates, but you probably alreadly understand that. You can use cardboard circles or what I like to use is a piece of 1/4" foam board cut to shape of my cake.

You sharpen one end of the dowel rod and slowly push through the cake. When I get to the foam board I gently twist while pushing. It should go right through all the way to the bottom tier. Then you mark the dowel, remove and cut it, and replace it back in the cake.

I hope this makes sense. I stink at giving instructions! And yes like sarahnichole975 said, you MUST use support dowels under each tier!

MessyBaker

Edited to add: I use a "hot knife" to cut foam board. It was only about 14.99 at Michaels and I used a 40% coupon! It cuts nice and straight without those nasty jagged edges. HTH

There's the center column (replaces dowels) construction with separator plates....

Illustrated common cake support systems:
(With complete and accurate directions.)

http://tinyurl.com/y22z72

Center column construction thread:

http://forum.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-585495-.html

HTH