Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A
Annette1
I have watched many tutorials of cake stacking and they all seem to use only 5 dowels for support, regardless of the size of the cake, why do you use 9, have you found that it stabilises the cake better. I am ready to stack a three tier rich fruit cakes, 12, 10, and 8 inch, please advice as I would hate for it to collapse and although I have made lots of wedding cakes this is my first stacking one. Thank you.
I have watched many tutorials of cake stacking and they all seem to use only 5 dowels for support, regardless of the size of the cake, why do you use 9, have you found that it stabilises the cake better. I am ready to stack a three tier rich fruit cakes, 12, 10, and 8 inch, please advice as I would hate for it to collapse and although I have made lots of wedding cakes this is my first stacking one. Thank you.
Hello Annette1
Rich fruit cake is usually strong enough not to require any dowelling at all. However I always dowel for peace of mind sake because sugarpaste and decorations are heavy. Paul uses nine dowels to make a strong, secure support. Dowels can sometimes slip and de-stabilse the structure, by creating the nine dowel method all posts are covered just in case any single one fails.
Hope this helps.
