How To Dowel A Cake With Skewers

How to Use Wood Dowels in Stacked Cakes

There are a number of ways to add infrastructure to the inside of a hymeneals cake or sculpted cake so it doesn't plummet. After building 1000+ custom cakes using a diverseness of systems including wood dowels, SPS and bubble tea straws, I've ended that woods dowels are the about dependable, affordable, and versatile method of all.

4 Benefits to Using Forest Dowels

How to Use Wood Dowels in Stacked Cakes

#ane They're Dependable

Woods dowels are sturdy enough to support a lot of weight. Provided the cake itself is stable and its dowels are oriented correctly within, you can achieve peachy heights using this method. Dowels agree up well during transport so you can complete a whole 3-tiered block in your kitchen then deliver it in one slice. It even works for precarious cakes likes the topsy turvy style.

#2 They're Affordable

Wood dowels cost a lot less than plastic plate separating system and other newfangled products designed for cake stacking (at the cease of this tutorial, I cover the pros and cons of other methods).

#3 They're Attainable

Since dowels are commonly used for all kinds of projects, they are piece of cake to discover in craft or hardware stores.

#4 They're Versatile

Since wood dowels are sold in a variety of thicknesses and lengths, they tin be bought and trimmed to accommodate whatever size or shape of cake. Moreover, they can be cut flat on the ends or sharpened to brand the two kinds of back up columns needed to properly stabilize a cake.

Cake Dowel Nuts

How to Use Wood Dowels in Stacked Cakes

This dowel method involves hiding cardboard and wooden rods inside a sculpted or multi-tiered cake.
Without being seen, these non-edible interior supports hold the cake up.
In that location are two kinds of dowels involved with this system.

SHORT DOWELS lend vertical support to a cake, preventing it from getting squished or crushed by the cake stacked above.

LONG POINTED DOWELS lend horizontal support , preventing the tiers of the cake from sliding side-to-side or slipping apart.

How to Use Wood Dowels in Stacked Cakes

VIDEO #1: How to Use Wood Dowels in Stacked Cakes

VIDEO #ii: Stacked Block Assembly Using Wood Dowels

Best Kind of Dowels to Buy

I similar the Wilton 12″ long, ane/four″ bore bamboo rods (commission earned). They are stiffer than nearly kinds of wood and cut more cleanly as well. This is my go-to dowel for both short vertical supports and long pointed supports. As for thicker support dowels, I buy those at the hardware store so I can choice my preferred sizes.

How to Use Wood Dowels in Stacked Cakes

Listing of Items Needed

Long wood skewer/s (commission earned)
Pen or marker
Cardboard base for each cake (committee earned)
White tape (optional)
Dowels: 12″ Wilton Dowel Rods or i/two″ wood dowels (committee earned)
Saw; for smaller dowels, large pet nail clippers work great (commission earned)
Pencil sharpener (or pocketknife for whittling)
Sand newspaper
Apple tree corer, for use with thick dowels merely (commission earned)

The Purpose of Cake Cardboards

How to Use Wood Dowels in Stacked Cakes

Every tier of every cake should get paired with a cardboard base of operations (commission earned) that is the aforementioned shape/size of the intended event. For example a 7" round block gets paired with a seven" round cardboard. In cases where the cake is oddly shaped, cut a custom cardboard base of operations with a serrated knife.

This is not office of the presentation every bit it will never show. The cardboard base of operations offers support and functionality to each tier of the cake. It's meant to stay with its tier from the first moment information technology is frosted to the indicate when it gets served. Once it'south frosted, the tier and its cardboard will be fully fused.

For wedding cakes and large party cakes that are going to sit on display for long periods of time, it helps to reinforce the cardboard's edges with white tape (commission earned), pulling information technology around each piece tautly. This prevents the corrugated perimeters from getting soggy, which can crusade drooping. Information technology also hides the brown cardboard border from showing through the frosting. In the end, it makes it easier for the person cutting the cake to disassemble the tiers.

Working with Brusk Vertical Support Dowels

I refer to dowels that support the weight of block tier/s above as short support dowels or vertical back up columns. They play a very of import role in belongings the cake up.

How to Use Wood Dowels in Stacked Cakes

Brusk supports must be level with the surface of the frosting or called finish. If they are too far below the finish, the tier volition get crushed when another level is stacked on top of it. Conversely, if they poke out above the surface, the side by side tier won't be stable, which could compromise the structural integrity of the cake.

How Many Dowels Are Needed?

Depending on the size of the tier and the amount that will be stacked on pinnacle of it, anywhere from three to 7 dowels may exist needed to attain stability.

How to Use Wood Dowels in Stacked Cakes

Higher up is a graphic depicting how I would orient the vertical dowel supports within each tier of cake that is stacked upwardly to five tiers high. The top tier doesn't need whatsoever vertical support dowels unless you plan to put a heavy topper on information technology, such as a ceramic figurine. The dotted yellow line indicates where the next tier in the stack volition sit down and then yous can run across approximately how far inside that boundary I like to place dowels. Call back to take that under consideration before you choice your spots.

Equally a dominion, the larger the cake, the more dowels needed. In some cases, thicker dowels or center dowels may be required. For stacked cakes involving three+ tiers with a base tier that is x″ inches or larger in diameter, calculation a thick dowel in the centre of the base tier is a smart safety mensurate.

Tip: Core out Infinite for Thicker Dowels

When adding thicker dowels to a cake, outset use an apple corer to remove the cylinder of cake that will be displaced past the wood. If you don't core out a spot for thick dowels, the pressure of the added volume risks cracking the block's finish.

Play a joke on: How to Measure out Short Vertical Support Dowels

Once a block tier is fully frosted, it's fourth dimension to measure out its interior height in order to determine the length of interior back up dowels needed. I've institute the nearly accurate way to do this is by inserting a lollypop stick or long wood skewer (commission earned) dull-side-downward through the block until it hits the cardboard base. With a pen or pencil, marking the skewer at the point where it meets the cake's surface. Then pull the skewer out of the cake and use its mark to measure the dowels for cut.

I've establish that I go ameliorate results when I use the skewer'due south marking minus 1/8" (three mm) to determine the length to cut dowels. Making them just a little scrap brusque guarantees the 2 tiers existence joined will bear upon all the way around. A seal betwixt tiers maximizes stability.

How to Cut Wood Dowels with Clippers

How to Use Wood Dowels in Stacked Cakes

Big pet nail clippers (commission earned) are a useful tool for cutting narrow dowels one by i. I have a pair in my tool kit that are used exclusively for dowels and never for paws as that would be a food safety take a chance. They are abrupt and accurate, their just limitation being size: they can't cut wide diameter dowels.

How to Cut Wood Dowels with a Handheld Saw

How to Use Wood Dowels in Stacked Cakes

Another option is to use a handheld reciprocating saw (commission earned) similar the one seen in the photo above. It is not the well-nigh authentic tool. Information technology cuts aggressively and is quite likely to splinter the wood. But it gets the task done. Whenever using the type of tool that saws back and forth, information technology helps to first secure the dowels together with tape so their ends are affluent. And so mark and cut them all at once. That manner, they come out fifty-fifty.

A miter box (commission earned)as seen in the lower right hand corner of the photo above, may exist used to assistance the procedure of trimming dowels with a saw. A miter box is a gadget that holds the wood against slats, which guide the saw blade into making directly cuts.

How to Cut Woods Dowels with a Tabletop Saw

For large projects, a miter saw (commission earned) similar the one in the photo above is a expert choice. Its rotating blade slices in one clean swoop, which produces the straightest, most accurate cuts. In my opinion, the miter saw (commission earned) is the best tool for the task of cutting dowels. As long as yous take a garage space or equivalent room apart from the kitchen where sawdust won't mingle with nutrient, this slice of equipment is a worthy investment for a busy cake business.

Sanding the Ends of Dowels

Always polish out the crude edges of freshly cutting dowels with sand paper.

How to Use Wood Dowels in Stacked Cakes

Once the dowels accept been sanded, stand up them on end together to compare their lengths and make certain they are all uniform and level. If they aren't uniform and level, fix information technology . Otherwise, you may stop up with a crooked cake. Below is an example of how short support dowels look on the base of operations tier of a boat cake. You tin see each dowel lies but below the frosted surface. They are configured to back up the weight of a tier that has matching dimensions. A couple of thicker dowels are positioned at points where extra weight is due to be stacked above.

How to Use Wood Dowels in Stacked Cakes

When to Insert Vertical Support Dowels into a Cake

The best time to insert this kind of dowel is shortly after frosting when the cake is somewhere in between refrigerator and room temperature. I naturally hit this betoken after merely completing the last glaze of frosting or simply after the cake has been covered in fondant or wrapped in modeling chocolate. At that point in the procedure, I've had the cakes out at room temperature for long enough that the surfaces are soft and pliable. And then is when cakes tend to be the most tolerant of the pressure of being penetrated by dowels. I chill the cake while measuring and cutting the dowels, just to assistance the surface set. Then as soon as the dowels are ready, I insert them.

Remember to add curt back up dowels earlier the cake tiers are stacked.

Where to Insert Vertical Back up Dowels

Always distribute vertical support dowels and so that they nigh evenly absorb the weight that will be pressed upon them from in a higher place. For circular cakes, suit them in a circular shape. For square cakes, arrange them in a square. In the example beneath, the dowels have been angled to accommodate an showtime tier.

How to Use Wood Dowels in Stacked Cakes

Working with Pointed Horizontal Support Dowels

Horizontal support dowels are longer, pointed on one end, and designed to pass vertically through the cardboard bases, locking stacked tiers together. They add together horizontal support, which prevents the tiers from sliding apart sideways. Whereas vertical supports piece of work to counteract the forces of gravity pressing downward from in a higher place, horizontal supports help the stacked cake tiers withstand being tilted and jiggled. Only in example the journey is rough or the brandish table has a wobble or someone bangs into the display tabular array or the weather is hot or the cake has structural integrity problems (for instance the tiers themselves are not level), these kinds of dowels help the cake tiers remain anchored and upright, lessening the chance of collapse.

2 pointed dowels is just the right amount to join block tiers together. I like to interlock tiers in the post-obit mode.

How to Use Wood Dowels in Stacked Cakes

Note: what the graphic above fails to depict is that with each tier in a stacked cake, I rotate the insertion points. For example, the bottom + eye tier insertion points will be at 12 and 6 o'clock. The top tier will insertion points volition exist at 3 and 9 o'clock. The goal is to infinite these kinds of tiers out evenly throughout the block. This helps the cake resist horizontal force from any management.

Some bakers adopt to insert ane super long dowel through the middle of the entire cake. A unmarried long dowel is satisfactory but not ideal. Information technology'due south harder to handle, more than challenging to insert. It poses a hazard since the cake tin spin on its centrality. I've learned the difficult way that the vibrations of a long car ride can jiggle a tier loose, making it spinny or worse, wobbly. Information technology may only spin a little flake, no more than than a fraction of an inch dorsum and along, but that'southward plenty to stretch and squish the piped border, frosting and details along that seal. If the loose tier wobbles dorsum and forth, that'southward even worse as it can throw the whole cake out of residuum.

The lesson learned here is to e'er use two long pointed support dowels per set of tiers being joined. One is non plenty. Three is too many, unless the cake is gigantic (3+ feet high) or complicated in shape. Two pointed dowels per level is usually simply right.

How to Mensurate Pointed Cake Dowels

This kind of dowel does not demand to be precisely measured. It'south length tin can be eyeballed. The only criteria is that information technology must exist slightly shorter than the combined height of the tiers it is meant to join.

How to Acuminate Pointed Cake Dowels

The best tool for sharpening dowels is a pencil sharpener. Don't sharpen the dowels to a sharp point though. Make sure they are slightly rounded at the tip (sand them down a trivial if you have to) because you don't want a sharp tip of wood breaking off inside the block.

Stacked Block Assembly

How to Use Wood Dowels in Stacked Cakes

When inserting long pointed dowels through tiers, press slowly merely firmly with two thumbs. When the tip reaches the paper-thin, yous will experience its resistance.

At the point of resistance, tap the blunt terminate of the dowel with a hammer so it pierces the cardboard base. Once the betoken has bored a tight hole for the dowel to pass through, you lot can complete the job by manus. Push button the dowels down so their butt ends are just below the surface of the cake. Rather than burying them deep out of sight, information technology's better to cover them with decorations, leaving them discoverable for the person whose chore it is to find and remove them subsequently on.

GENERAL TIPS & TRICKS

TRICK: How to Remove Dowels from Inside a Block

How to Use Wood Dowels in Stacked Cakes

To remove dowels from inside a block because they are the incorrect length or because information technology'south time to serve the cake, use needle olfactory organ pliers (commission earned) to catch and pull them out. It's a expert idea to ever carry needle nose pliers in your cake delivery supply kit just in instance there is a problem that requires y'all to pull the tiers apart.

TIP: Add a Layer of Parchment Paper Betwixt Tiers

In one case the curt wooden support dowels have been inserted into the tier, it helps to lay a piece of parchment paper on the surface of all but the topmost tier. This is non required. It'due south simply an optional footstep that assists in the procedure of assembling and disassembling a multi-tier cake.

How to Use Wood Dowels in Stacked Cakes

Cutting the parchment paper to the same verbal size and shape equally the base of the upper tier (i.due east the 1 that will go stacked above) every bit those dimensions volition provide you with an authentic boundary for orienting your dowels. When the time comes to place the upper tier down, information technology will assistance guide your physical placement of information technology.

How to Use Wood Dowels in Stacked Cakes

The main purpose of placing a parchment paper liner between stacked tiers is to prevent them from fusing together. When there is no liner, the frosting from the lower tier gets stuck to the cardboard base of operations of the upper tier. That means yous but have one shot to place the upper tier down; wherever it lands is where it will stay (not ideal). With a parchment liner underneath each tier, y'all take more than than one shot. Yous can use your starting time spatula to shift, jerk and adjust the upper tier until information technology sits in the right place. You tin can fifty-fifty lift off the tier if you lot need to brand a large fix.

Much later, when it'southward time to cutting the cake, the parchment liner volition come in handy one last fourth dimension equally it will make it easy to pull apart the joined tiers.

How to Employ Wood Dowels in Sculpted Cakes

The play tricks to stabilizing large sculpted cakes with dowels is to consider the weight distribution of each given shape. Wherever the most force will get exerted, that'southward where you lot want to place your thickest supports. Hither is an example from start to finish of how four tiers became ane behemothic 3D boat cake with the help of dowels and modeling chocolate. This wedding ceremony cake served over 100 people.

Alternative Methods

Bubble tea straws (commission earned) offering the advantage of being cheap and easier to cut than wood dowels. This method is fine for modest projects (2-3 tier cakes) but I wouldn't risk using it on larger stacked cakes, cake transport or any situation that involves movement of the cake. Hollow plastic straws can't be whittled downward to a bespeak, which ways they can't exist used to join tiers or lend horizontal support. This is my complaint: their usefulness is express in telescopic.

The Separator Plate Organisation, which involves a set of interlocking plastic columns and plates, is the least reliable selection I've encountered in the bakery business. For one thing, it's an expensive production for single utilize (if you tin can recover the parts and reuse them, it's a improve investment). The peskiest role is the plastic plate, which just comes in handy when the cake has elevated/separated tiers similar this white hymeneals cake with fresh flowers.

For conventional stacked cakes with touching tiers, the plate adds and then much bulk that it leaves a gap between tiers. That gap is not easy to hide. Worst of all, the plastic plate gets in the way of inserting long pointed horizontal support dowels through the cake, which means the cake tin't be adequately stabilized. Since y'all can't stabilize it, yous have no selection but to get together every tier on site, which is more challenging (personally, I prefer to assemble cakes as much every bit I tin can before delivery).

Lastly, the plastic support columns tend to exist chunky. They readapt way more cake than I feel is necessary. Fifty-fifty the hollow columns, which are easier to work with than the thick kind, are much wider than they need to be. They are and then broad, they lower your servings count. In conclusion, I've had more issues with this method than any other ane I've always tried so I can't recommend it.

How to Use Wood Dowels in Stacked Cakes