Doweling

I dowel each layer of my tiered cakes with 5 dowels (with 3 tiers or more). I put two central dowels down the center of the entire cake (I keep them separated about 3 inches apart). Why two central dowels? Because the cake is heavy with that many tiers, the cakes (at least mine) tend to slightly shift. I am always playing it safe with dowels.

Here is a blog article that you might find helpful.
http://www.thatreallyfrostsme.com/2010/05/stacking-tiered-cake.html

This is seriously the best video to watch on how to stack a cake: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvaCSW78ybc

When I do larger tiered cakes I use wiltons plastic plates and pegs supports. They lock into eachother so the structure is nice and stable.

Thank You very much for all your answers :)

In UK we do not use the frosting covering as much as USA – favouring fondant icing to cover. So my question is regarding the frosted stacked cakes is – do you normally have to deliver them already stacked in their tiers? Or do you stack them up at the venue? What’s normally done? We would stack a wedding cake which already has rods through at the venue to make for safe delivery. Would love to know!