Cake pillars add a touch of elegance to special cakes such as wedding cakes or anniversary cakes.   There are two basic types of cake pillars, open cake pillars and hidden cake pillars.  Open pillars are, as their name implies, open to view.  They support the cake layers by directly resting either on the bottom layers of cake or by standing on the cake plate.  Cake pillars are of differing lengths; depending on the number of layers in the cake you will need sets of pillars in different heights.   The larger the number of layers or tiers, the sturdier the cake pillars need to be in order to support not only the tier immediately above it, but all the subsequent tiers, as well.  Since a tier of cake is traditionally about five inches thick, the shortest pillars available are about 6 inches long.  This means that only one inch of the pillar is open to view.

Cake pillars can be made of anything from wooden dowels to the finest crystal; I also saw some made of silver and there were a couple that seemingly had gold plating.  The base of a cake pillar can be the only thing you see in the case of a “hidden” cake pillar.  In this case the base of the pillar is actually the top and supports the second tier of cake.  The rest of the pillar is made up of a dowel with a sharpened point which goes through the cake and rests in a cup-shaped holder.

In order to use cake pillars, cake separator plates are needed to maintain the integrity of the cake and make certain that the tier resting on the pillars does not simply slide down the pillar.  Cake separator plates are usually of plastic or heavy cardboard and have indentations to accommodate cake pillars. 

Putting a cake together is very simple in theory; one places the layers of cake on the supporting cake separator plate to frost, and the cake pillars are placed between the tiers of cake.  The difficulty comes in maintaining absolute verticality.  What this means is that all the cake pillars must be at a perfect ninety degree angle to the table in order to support the tier above.  Obviously, this is easier said than done, and becomes more difficult with each progressive tier.  This is one reason that many cakes only have one set of pillars, instead of two or three.