I did a practice sheet cake. Her are my questions:

I did a half and half (white and chocolate) sheet cake. I used the technique by using aluminum foil as a divider. Do I take the foil out before putting it in the oven???

I used Dawn's bc icing. I thought since I was doing a sheet cake I should add corn syrup to thin before icing. Right or wrong??? My intention was to smooth using the boiled water and spatula technique and then using the Viva paper towel. Smoothing with the spatula left me with an ice cream cake look and I did not get a crust so the paper towel did not work. Is that because I added corn syrup.

I used heat strips for the first time. The chocolate side cooked slower and the cake was uneven. I just used DH straight from the box since it was a practice cake. No added ingredients.

I hope this is not too much at one time but I really need so help.

Thanks,

Lisa

I use cardboard or foil to divide mine and then I pull it out before I bake it

I'm not sure on the icing as I don't use that recipe. I use the papertowel method for smoothing my cakes.. I don't do anything but the papertowel.. I let my icing sit for about 10-15 minutes before I smooth them. I've baked cakes like that many times and both sides baked evenly... so I'm not sure why yours didn't ...

LAA - I just made a 12X18 half white half chocolate cake this past weekend for a birthday. Here is what worked for me. Grease and flour the pan and line the bottom with wax paper. I took a ruler and wrapped it with foil. I used 4 cake mixes - 2 white and 2 chocolate, I mixed the white up first - put the ruler in the center of the pan - it fits just perfect. I propped it with the crisco container to hold it in place. Then I mixed up the chocolate batter - removed the crisco container and poured in the chocolate cake batter. after getting all of the batter in, pull the ruler out. Then I baked it at 325 - took quite a while, and in my case the chocolate side rose higher than the white. NO biggie, after it cooled a while I just leveled it off. ( I used a large piece of dental floss - worked like a charm!)

for the icing - I used the wilton buttercream, only I doubled it and I used 1 stick of butter to 1 and 1/2 cups of crisco. I also put in 2 Tablespoons of meringue powder to make sure it crusted, so I could smooth it with the viva. Let it set for 5 or 10 minutes and it smoothed right out with the viva, it crusted perfectly.

I hope this helps you. It turned out real nice, but the camera was dead and I had to deliver it, so there are no pics of it. (mine was a 70th birthday party cake)

LAA,

I have used Dawn's BCI, I like the taste but it will not crust for me. It is too wet. I think it's the humidity. I went back to using reg BCI & I do not have that problem any longer. That could be your problem. Oh, I do not use meringue powder in my BCI & it still crusts.

You could try adding a little more chocolate batter then you have with your white batter, make sure your divider is high enough that the batter doesn't flow over onto the white side. If it rises too high then just put a cutting board on top of the cake & add a little weight to it. You won't need to level the cake when you use that technique. Good luck!

So funny! I just did a 1/2 and 1/2 cake chocolate and french vanilla. I didn't use a divider at all. I just mixed up the chocolate batter in one bowl and the vanilla in the other. Prepared my pan for baking, set it on the stove top and poured both batters at the same time from opposite ends of the pan. It was a 12x18 and it baked perfectly.

However--I did add a bit of flour to the vanilla side and beat it a bit longer. I was concerned because the batter seemed thinner and I thought it would bake more evenly with the chocoalte side if they were the same viscosity. I never even thought to put a divider in and it worked just fine.


Now--about Dawn's bc. I use it and love it. It crusts for me--but it's never a really hard crust. That's one of the things I love about it--it doesn't crack when you cut into it. I wouldn't use corn syrup in it, though. I would bet anything that's why it didn't crust for you. I use the recipe straight up for decorating (even roses) and I added 2 T. whipping cream to it to use in icing the cake. That made it the perfect consistence. I used the icer tip (successfully for the first time), hot knifed it and used Viva just a little to do a final smoothing on it. If you click on my photos--it's the cake with the 2 hears--it was perfectly smooth (a first for me!). Did you dry off your spatula well before putting it on the cake? I've found that if there is any water on it--it will give it that "ice cream" appearance.

Anyway--hope this helps!

Lisa