Is it ok to use drinking straws instead of dowels for a 2 tiered round cake?
I know for larger cakes one would probably want the extra strength of the dowel, but is it really necessary for a 2 tiered cake?
I use bubble tea straws on my two tiered cake. You can buy them at an Asian market. They are much larger than regular drinking straws and can hold more weight. I saw this method in a Sharon Zambito video...she said she uses them all the time.
You can use the drinking straws, cut them to size for the cake.
You will prob have to put about 5 straws in the cake for better support.
But, if your going to put fondant on the cake and other deco's, you would prob want to go with the bubble tea straws too. They are more sturdy for the weight support.
HTH
I use regular drinking straws for all of my two tiered (8/6 inch) cakes. I've never had any problems.
I also use drinking straws - the cheap kind from IKEA 
If the cake is more than 2 tiers or extra heavy I also put a wooden skewer( not sure if it's the right word? But the stick that you use for barbecue...) inside each straw as extra support
The dowel/straw combination is a great idea for extra support.
yeah, just wanted to chime in saying that i use bubble tea straws for every tiered cake and love them. very sturdy, cheap and easy to cut! i went to an asian food store and got 200 of them for $1.49!!! the only bummer is that i only had my debit card and they had a $10 minimum, so i had to buy 7 or 8 packages, but i'm glad it did...i think i'm on my 3rd package, so business is good 
if you can't find an asian food store, you may even be able to purchase some from your local asian rest.?!
We got them from P a n e r a bread....Saw the manager and got about 500 straws for $5.00.
Paul
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