I just have a question. I have done stacked cakes before and I always use a board under each layer and dowels for support. My question is there a trick to prevent all that icing coming off when you go to separate the tiers to cut the cake. In all the cakes I have made when you separate the layers I end up with a round center with no icing. Help please if there is a trick. I use buttercream too and it doesn't crust too much.

Thanks

I've heard to sprinkle something like sanding sugar (coarse sugar) in the area before placing the next layer. I've never tried it because I don't think that much sugar would be appetizing and would still want to scrape it off.

You can use a circle of waxed paper, or sprinkle powdered sugar. (Recommended habit to have, especially if you don't serve all of your cakes.)

(Most people don't care what it looks like during the disassembly and serving process, so scraping the icing that's stuck to a bottom board and smearing back onto the surface works too!)

I used a parchment paper circle for the one and only BC stacked cake that I did (I'm a total noob at this ) and it worked well.

Thanks everyone for your suggestions I appreciate it. I will try the parchment circle.