Quick, easy, and most importantly, inexpensive- this is how you can quickly turn any two cakes, even store-bought or Ice Cream cakes, into a two-tiered cake extravaganza. Especially good for weddings (like my own), fancy birthdays, or any situation you want to class up.

Not including cake-making, this takes about 30 minutes.

Step 1: What You'll Need

2 or more cakes
1 dowel, at least 1 1/8" in diameter\
saw, to cut dowel
wire cutters
small finishing nails
pieces of plastic or thin cardboard, such as a plastic cup
paint
decorations

Step 2: Making the Pillars

First, paint the dowel with a non-toxic paint to match the color of your cake frosting.

After that dries, measure how tall you want the pillars to be, plus the depth of the cake to get an overall height.

Cut the dowel into 4 pieces of the correct length. Don't worry about doing too much damage to the edges you cut, as both sides will more or less be out of view.

Be sure to make your cuts as level as possible, using a miter box if you have one.

Step 3: Extra Support

Tap a small finishing nail into the ends of each dowel section, then cut the head off. You want something sharp that's going to pierce the cardboard bottom that both cakes are sitting on.

Don't leave more than 1/4" of the nail sticking out, because if it's too long you might poke through the bottom into whatever you set th cake on, or it will not sit flush on the bottom.

Step 4: Pillars Go Where?

use a piece of plastic or thin cardboard (typically you can use part of the original cake cover) and cut a sheet at least 4 or 5 inches wide, then roll it up to th size of the pillar.

Tape the side to keep the rolled up shape. Best way is to just wrap the plastic tightly around the pillar, tape it, pull it off.

This is what you will use to cut holes in the cake where the pillars will go.

Step 5: Cutting

Cut as many holes in the bottom cake as you have pillars. For this cake we have four pillars, and cut four holes.

Quick math on measurements- look to see how many inches in diameter the top cake is. Then subtract the width of two pillars. The remainder is how much top cake lateral area you have to work with between two cross pillars. Take THAT number, subtract about 1/2" or 1" from each side so you don't run out of room and don't crowd the center.

For example: 8" diameter cake - (2x 1 1/4" pillars)= 5 1/2" left over

5 1/2" - 2" (1" on each side) means that the pillars should be right about 3 1/2" apart across the center of your bottom cake. Or just use what looks good and symmetrical.

Cut the holes by inserting the plastic tube, hitting bottom, and twisting, then sloooooowly pulling it out of the cake.

Wash the frosting off the sides each time or you will start making gory, messy holes much larger than the tube.

Step 6: Decorate!

At this point, decorate both cakes like how you want them. Be sure you can still pick up the top cake.

Now move them both to exactly where you want them to be for the duration of the rest of their cake lives.

Step 7: Insert Tab a Into Slot B....

Insert the pillars in the bottom cake, pressing the pokey nails into the bottom cardboard piece. Add icing to the cracks on the side to make the pillars look more like they are part of the cake.

For extra support, but not 100% necessary, take a sheet of plastic leftover from the cake covers, and poke 4 holes in it for the nails to go through. This will provide a platform for the top cake, but will also be slippery- put some random globs of frosting on the plastic piece too to prevent slipping.

Step 8:

Now just set your top cake on the pillars, and lightly press down on the cardboard bottom of the top cake so that the nails poke into it.

And that's it! Top it with some cutesy little figurine things or something and you're all done.