everytime i'm cooling a cake it "shrinks" so that when i go to put what was a 6" cake on a 6" cake board, the cake board sticks out and i have to cut it which makes for a not so round cake board. i'm only concerned for when i'm stacking cakes. just a one tier party cake i'm not concerned with. what am i doing wrong? i bake, let sit in the pan for about 10 min and then put on the cooling rack and cool completely.

thanks
aimee

Sounds more like a recipe issue then cooling/baking. Which recipe do you use? I'm already assuming you are using the exact size pan from Wilton, etc...

it's any receipe that i use. 100% from scratch, "doctored" cake mix or even just a plain 'ol 100% DH out of the box for my hubby. so i figured it was something that i was doing wrong. i'm using the wilton pans. i have some sizes in the decorator preferred and some in the performance pans. no matter what pan i use, it does it.

Do you bake them at 325 deg. I use Wilton, box and doctored including WASC and usually they all come out without shrinking. I would possibly double check my oven temp. I also use milk instead of water.

i bake them at 350 so i'll drop it down to 325. hmmmm. i'll have to try the milk instead of water. i always hate the ones that have water and oil makes for such a soupy batter.

Well, cakes do shrink a bit when they bake, so that's not really a surprise. And that extra space between the cake and the edge of the board is where the icing goes. Hold your bench scraper or palette knife on the edge of the board and go around the cake for a very round icing job.

I bake at 325 and all of my cakes shrink a bit--some recipes more than others, quite frankly. I find that the shrinkage runs around 1/4th inch from the actual pan size.

I cut my bottom boards from 3/16th foamcore, so I usually measure it with the pan and cut inside the lines. This leaves a small lip to ice "to", like Leah said.

Now, if I'm covering the cake in fondant, my buttercream layer is a bit thinner, so I'll cut the board more to the actual cake size.

HTH
Rae

You make so much sense and you have helped me a lot. I buy the board same size as cake and then I have quite a big lip which doesn't work if covering the fondant as There was a lip even after I cover with fondant. Thank you. 

AMy Cakes Were Shrinking Also, I Found That If I Let My Eggs Get To Room Temp My Cakes Came Out Perfect :) Hope That Helps!