Hi There,

I am really hoping that you can help.  I am making a wedding cake for my cousin, 4 tier rustic buttercream with chocolate, vanilla and lemon tiers, with the top being fruit!  The problem is i am worried that the weight of the top fruit tier may crush the lower layers...even if correctly doweled.  The tiers will be extra tall as well, but not double barreled.  Can you offer any suggestion as to how i can overcome this fear and if it can in fact work with standard dowels.  Some people have said it should be fine if it's doweled right, but i need to make sure.  We don't normally dowel through the centre of the entire cake unless we are transporting the cake as one.  PLEASE HELP!!!!

I don't see why there would be an issue if everything is level and doweled correctly.  For the fruit on top, I would dowel the top tier, place a cake round on top and then place the fruit on top of the cake round.  This way you have dowels and a cake round supporting the fruit so that the weight of the fruit isn't directly on top of the cake.

If your top tier is a fruit cake, as long as you dowel well and ensure they are all straight etc it should be ok. However I am assuming you are stacking on site. Personally I would consider SPS, but I have never used it with fruit cake.

Now I am confused, don't know if you are putting fruit on top of the cake or if your top tier is a fruitcake.  Either way, a level, properly doweled (or straws) cake will hold up fine.  A central dowel will have no effect on the weight of the upper tiers, just with shifting.  My largest cake was five tall tiers with three 1" separators, totaling a cake that was 45" tall.  My only supports were large straws and cake boards.  Since I was not transporting it stacked, I did not use a central dowel.  It was as solid as a rock.