Doweling a Cake

Appears in

Baking & Pastry: Mastering the Art and Craft

Published 2015

About

Dowels are to multitiered cakes what steel beams are to skyscrapers. Without some sort of support, the weight of the upper tiers will cause them to sink into the tiers below. However, this can be easily avoided by inserting simple drinking straws or wooden dowels for support. The number of supports needed will depend on how large the cake is and how many tiers it must support.

Begin with the cake that is to be the bottom tier. Center a cake pan that is the same size as the tier that will go on top of it. Press the pan down gently to make an imprint in the buttercream or fondant. Remove the cake pan. The pan outline will guide the location of the straws.
Insert a straw or dowel into the center of the cake, making sure it goes all the way down to the cake board. Use a marker to indicate on the support where it is flush with the top of the cake. Remove the support and wipe off any cake or icing.
Cut the support with a pair of scissors or serrated saw, using the line as a guide.
Use the cut support as a guide to cut the other supports to the same height.
Insert the supports into the cake, spacing them out evenly and leaving approximately 1 inch of space between the edge of the cake pan imprint and the supports.
To make sure that the next tier will sit evenly on the first tier, place a cake board the same size as the next tier on top of the supports and then place a leveler on top of the board. If a cake has high and low areas (is not even), adjust the heights of the supports so the next tier will be level. The supports in short areas will have to be slightly higher than the cake so that the next tier will not be slanted.
Insert supports into all the tiers except the top tier.

Part of

Wedding and Specialty Cakes

Building a Properly Supported Cake