baking a cake

by Tammie
(Hollister)

I think the more I bake cakes, the more questions I come up with. Here goes... Why is it that when you bake a cake, it always gets rounded on the top. Then when you turn the cake out of the pan, it doesnt sit flat on the surface. And I always use your preparing the pans technique with parchment paper so I have to peel the paper from the bottom of the cake and then try to flip the cake back over without tearing it to pieces. And if its a really big cake, that is sometimes hard to do. Is it a better way to do this? And then it seems that when I level my cake to make it flat on the top, it causes it to be shorter than what I want it to be. What am I doing wrong or what can I do better. How can I make flipping out of the pan, and turning the cake back over(or do you leave it on that side) a tad bit easier?

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baking a cake

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Jan 27, 2010
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starstarstarstarstar 		Another tip
by: Anonymous

I found when taking a Wilton cake class that Wilton sells these strips that will keep the cake from getting that dome at the top, you just soak them in cold water and wrap the sides of your pan with them and they pin on, they aren't very expensive and they work pretty good, you can find them in the cake decorating section of Michaels or Hobby Lobby stores. Also I learned that Baker's joy is the best thing to spray in your pans to keep the cake from sticking, it has flour in it and works wonderfully, I have never used any kind of parchment paper and never had a problem with cakes sticking to the pan.
Hope this helps!
May 15, 2009
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starstarstarstarstar 		Baking Questions
by: Michelle (admin)

Hi Tammie,

1. The doming is caused by the outside edges of the cake baking faster than the center. You can remedy this by wrapping your pans with strips of wet towel to keep the sides of the pan cooler during baking.

Also, you can level the cake layers by very gently pressing down on the center of each one as soon as you remove them from the oven.

2. For easier flipping of cakes, I always use two cooling racks. I hold one rack directly on top of the pan and invert the cake on to the rack, gently peel off the parchment paper, then immediately flip it back on to the second cooling rack, by gently holding the rack against the top surface of the cake and inverting.

3. If your cake layers are shorter than you want, you have two options:

a. use a little more cake batter (as long as the pan is not more than 2/3 full), or

b. make up the height when you're filling between layers. Add a little more filling to each layer until you get the finished height you want.

Hope this has helped.

Regards,
Michelle (editor)

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