I met with a bride yesterday and she asked if I used wooden dowels inside of my cakes. I said actually I will be using a plate and pillar system inside your cake. She told me that she had previously met with someone the day before that told her they use NOTHING inside of their cakes. I was in total shock! Reading the horror stories on here about wooden dowels but this decorator uses NOTHING???? 
Why do all that hard work only for it to collapse and the bride has no cake!
If the other person hasn't had a disaster yet - well yet is the important word there. I would have laughed and said, "Amateur! I'm a professional and I know better."
I have had brides specifically ask if I use dowels in a cake and I do laugh ans say 'No, that's the #1 reason cakes fall. I use a much better system" and leave the convo there.
I agree that an amateur's improper use of dowel could be a major factor in why cakes fall.
Wow! NOTHING! Perhaps its not a stacked cake but graduated layers on tiered stands or pillars. I've never heard of a professional not using support inside stacked cakes...except perhaps for Sandra Lee. Didn't she have an episode where she stacked cakes and didn't dowel? I think it was the towering holiday cake with licorice strings. Maybe SL is the other baker. Just kidding now!
I guess there are some "old school" decorators out there who don't dowel/support some types of cakes--I guess they think their cakes are dense enough to withstand so much stress 
I think it's pretty stupid and I can't see it being a selling point, but I also think a lot of today's brides are just plain weird about things.............
I was at a 50th wedding anniversary party here in the Cleveland area a few years ago. It was unusally warm for the March date--probably 75 degrees inside the small, airless venue.
The cake was a 3 tier, square cassata cake--white cake with fresh strawberries & whipped cream filling, iced in real whipped cream, too.....very popular here (and I won't touch it!), but also almost always just a sheet cake.
I noticed on arrival that the cake was leaning badly and the definition in the poorly piped whipped cream was disappearing.
I went into the kitchen and told them that they'd better watch it because it didn't look like it would make it to the toast.
I asked if the cake had any supports in it (because it looked like each tier was sinking into the next)--and they said NO! I just about died. I also knew that I couldn't help because I'd also bet that there were no boards between tiers, either.
They just stacked tier on tier, iced it fairly smooth, piped on some shells, and put it in the fridge. Fine if you're gonna' eat it the minute it comes out of the fridge, but if it sits, it's a disaster waiting to happen.
If she really wants a "support-free" cake, wish her luck & send her on her way!
Rae
I had a bride call me after her wedding complaining about the supports in her cake, that her friend who was cutting the cake had to pick them out...a DUH! (I use the thick plastic dowels then a center wooden dowel through the entire cake and into the cake base.) I asked her if her cake was intact and sturdy and she said yes, then I informed her that if those supports weren't in place her cake would have cratered. She then changed her tune.
I had one call me once, literally screaming at me about the 'sticks' in her cake.
I very calmly asked her what she thought would have happened if there were no supports inside that cake. She hung up on me, but not before screaming that I had ruined her wedding by putting sticks in the cake and that she was going to sue.
....not before screaming that I had ruined her wedding by putting sticks in the cake and that she was going to sue.
Mmhmm....damned if you do & damned if you don't..............damned if you did & damned if you didn't......... 
Rae
I had one call me once, literally screaming at me about the 'sticks' in her cake.
I very calmly asked her what she thought would have happened if there were no supports inside that cake. She hung up on me, but not before screaming that I had ruined her wedding by putting sticks in the cake and that she was going to sue.
Well? did she sue?
I bet you $10 that baker has no idea what she is going, and will be just like that wedding cake on Cakwrecks. This is prob. her first tiered cake or something. That is crazy-cakes are heavy! It's only a matter of time until one collapses.
This wedding is in the middle of May! Could you imagine delivering that thing in the car? I would die! That was the first question the bride asked me about the dowels. I almost wonder if she had witnessed a cake wreck!
I guess there are some "old school" decorators out there who don't dowel/support some types of cakes--I guess they think their cakes are dense enough to withstand so much stress
"Old school"?? What is old school about undoweling of cake?
You mean dense fruit cakes?
You mean dense fruit cakes?
I make a lot of dense fruit cakes and even with those I wont stack it unsupported.
Unless her cakes are as solid as a brick its a disaster waiting to happen!
You mean dense fruit cakes?
And when was the last time, in the United States, that a fruitcake was something other than the butt of all Christmas jokes?
When they're used as door stops. 
I still love a good fruit cake at Christmas..my Mom still makes the best...well, she used to anyway. It had rum soaked into it...almost wet...good thing she never tried to stack it...LOL!
What "horror" stories about wooden dowels? Are they not very good to use? If not....what is? Thanks to Blakescakes I have had no more disasters with a collapsing cake....it only took one. 
And of course it was a first with someone other than a family member or friend. 
Blakescakes..... LOVE YA!!!!!
Our wedding cake did not have any dowels in the cake and I wore the cake. My sister who had been making cakes for years promised us a cake we would always remember! She gave us exactly what she promised! Unless the baker is using some cake towers and not stacking the cakes and putting several cakes on the table. If she still insists on no supports for her cake, please remind her to wear an apron over her gown, she or some else will be wearing it.
I too have a dowel rod horror story. (Still can't talk about it!)
However my jury is still out on the perfect support system.
Does anyone use hidden pillars and smooth edge separation plates from Wilton? Would you say they work a lot like SPS?
Do you think she's talking about the floating cake stands, like the ones Wilton has? Maybe it's not all one cake, but 3 seperate ones on a stand like that???
No, this bride was very specific on stacked cakes. She wants squares too. I cannot imagine how heavy and unsteady it would be. It is a cake to feed 125 people too.
I wondered about the Wilton plates and pillars myself. I have to order the SPS stuff online and sometimes have to come up with something last minute.
No Wilton does not work exactly like SPS. For one thing, SPS is much sturdier and you don't have to cut the legs if you bake to height. That's major. Any time you're cutting a leg for a support, there's a risk of not doing it perfectly. And then the risk of collapse increases.
I read somewhere, and now I really wish I could remember where... that "old school" cakes were covered with and decorated with RI, and it dried hard enough to support the weight of the stacked tiers. Of course, the cake involved was a fruit cake, so that dense structure helped, too.
It was fruitcake soaked in booze covered in marzipan, then RI.
Maybe that's what she was thinking?
Of course, this brings to mind the video I saw posted on here once where the Bride and groom couldn't cut the cake. They were practically hacking at it and couldn't get into it.
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