How to assemble a wedding cake without dowels

First of all, credit for this idea goes to the chef I was inspired by. See his very short video here:

I had to bake a wedding cake and I knew there would have been 50 people at the party, so I didn’t need a huge cake, but I wanted it tall, such as the classic wedding cakes are.
This new technique was just perfect to me!

You will need:

• 1 cardboard 35 cm diameter (14 inches) x 3 mm thickness (0.1 inches)
• 1 round dummy 45 cm diameter (18 inches) 5 cm height (2 inches)
• 1 round dummy 25 cm diameter (10 inches) 10 cm height (4 inches)
• 1 round dummy 15 cm diameter (6 inches) 10 cm height (4 inches)
• 1 round dummy 10 cm diameter (4 inches) 10 cm height (4 inches)
• 1 baking tin 35 cm diameter (14 inches)
• 1 bark mould
• kitchen parchment
• pins
• 1 knife
• 1 cutter
• Scissors

I cut the cardboard to have two rings (35 cm + 25 cm diameter) and a 15 cm diameter round.
Each ring was 5 cm wide.

Helping with the biggest cardboard ring, I coated the largest dummy (45 cm diameter) with fondant and got the wood effect using the bark mould.

I cut out some stripes from kitchen parchment , tall enough to match the height of the dummy+the cardboard ring and set them onto the dummies.

In the pictures below you can see the step by step to have the final structure.

I baked three 35 cm diameter Sponge cakes, to have enough cake to reach 10 cm height and match with the height of the dummies.
I had to cut 6 rings of cake to put onto the rings of cardboard,
that would have surrounded the dummies.
Dummies helped me to have perfect cuts and shapes of the cake rings.
Plus I got a 15 cm diameter cake round.
I know my English isn’t that good, but I hope pictures will help you to understand.

I “built” two cakes putting the cake rings onto the respective cardboard rings, filling them one by one. Then, I carefully inserted the dummies inside the “towers” of cake rings and coated with buttercream and fondant.

When assembled, each layer of cake stood onto a dummy, so that dowels were not needed.
Cake top was the 10 cm diameter dummy that I decorated with fondant
and white roses.
I hope this tutorial may help someone.
Thank you for watching! ❤️