Hi! I'm hoping someone with a little more experience can give me some advice. I am making a 4 tiered hollywood themed cake for my daughter's drill team banquet. The bottom tier is a 14 inch round (4 inches high). The next two tiers are single 10 inch rounds that look like movie reels, and then the final tier will be a 6 inch round (again 4 inches high).

My question is about the two movie reel tiers. I am making them by covering two 12 inch cake boards (for each movie reel) with fondant and then putting the single layer 10 inch cake in between the two boards. I was also planning to offset them slightly instead of just stacking them exactly on top of one another (hopefully that makes sense). Should I also dowel these two single layer cakes even though each has the two cardboards?

I am planning to assemble the cake on site, so I'm not really concerned about transporting the cake, but I do want it to be structurally sound.

This is the biggest cake I have ever made, so I'm a little nervous... Any advice would be really appreciated!!

Thanks,
Christy

I would dowel them. My philosophy is that if you have to wonder if you should dowel then you should It will never hurt.

The "rule" is, supports for every 4 inches of cake. Of course you need supports in the 14 inch but as far as the two single layer 10 inch cakes I don't think I would.

Remember that those two single layers are supporting the cake above them

Thanks for the advice. I decided to go ahead and dowel them just to be safe. Here's a pic of the finished cake. I thought it turned out pretty good... Let me know what you think.