I am making 3 2" deep 16" round cakes. They will be stacked atop eachother and now I'm wondering if it's going to cave in. Nothing wll be on top of the cake, just iced and minimal decorations. Will it be safe to travel and hold up for 3 days without a support structure or do I need to go ahead and dowel and put in boards? Thank you for your help.

Well, the issue is really compression. Those will be some heavy cakes and over 3 days, they'll be subjected to plenty of gravity.

Personally, I'd put in dowels and a board. I'd split one layer into 2 so that I could have 2, 3" tall layers, fill that, dowel it, and add the other 3" boarded, filled layer on top of that.

Rae

I would definitely use dowels and boards in between each cake. And I would also run 2 sharpened dowels from the top, thru all the boards and layers, all the way down to the bottom cake board or drum or whatever you are using. This would prevent them from shifting. You can never be too careful in the world of cakes!

Thank you both.