hi, when you cook larger cakes , how and what do you use as a heating core? l am thinking l may need to do this but dont know how? thanks again, helen

Hi, I use flower nails for all the cakes I make. Sometimes I use wet towel strips ( instead of bake even strips) around the cake too.

Same here, i use flower nails,2 or 3 for bigger cakes and i always use a wet towel even for small 9 inch cakes.Never had a problem

I love the bake even strips, but have also had just as good of results with flower nails.

Flower nails for me too

Make that one more for Flower Nails.

I have used strips of wet towels, a heating core and also flower nails.... and the flower nails seem to be the quickest & easiest. I just coat them well with my homemade cake release & they pop right out, leaving a very small mark.

Here's my vote for flower nails.

How, exactly, do you use the wet towels? I just use flower nails right now but am curious about these wet towels, or bake even strips! Do bake even strips fit around a 16 inch square pan?

Thanks!

I cut strips of a bath sized towl about 4 inches wide. I folded them in half to be the height of a 2" pan, then soaked them in water, just wring out lightly so the don't drip. Secured them around the outside of the pan using new diaper pins. It was a challenge to get them secure enough that I didn't have to worry about them sliding down onto the oven rack. I was afraid they'd catch fire with as long as you have to bake a large cake!

But I read a tip here not long ago that those metal Binder Clips (for large amounts of paper) work well to secure the towel strips.
Haven't tried it though since using flower nails.

Three flower nails and bake even strips , I have a cake decorating book that states you can use wet newspaper to .

I've only ever used flower nails....cheap and easy!

Jodie

I am always in the minority but i LOVE my heating cores:

http://sugaredblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/i-love-it-to-core.html

i use my large deco tips... i mean the huge ones.. just spray them and voila!

I use the flower nails too....I tried the heating core but actually hated it. I don't know what I did wrong but it didn't work for me...good luck!

I've been baking for almost 30 yrs and almost never use anything!
I've bakes 16" rounds & 16" sqs w/o any.......and most of the time I don't use bake-even strips either.

I always use baking strips, but I have read so much about the flower nails that I decided to give it a try, I used 2 nails. Here are the pics. of my first attempt. Hope it helps.

oh, gee, thanks to you all, l have never heard of flower nails, but lm only a learner....
l wonder if thats what they are called in australia?
do you think a 10 inch cake would need it..
you are all so clever

I also use flower nails but I have also used an empty tomato paste can with both the top and bottom cut off for the larger cake pans. Since it is higher than the flower nail, it will do the trick of directing the heat to the center of the cake. I grease the can inside and out then I pour my batter in the pan and then place the can right in the middle of the batter. I use the baking strips too.

oh, thats what they look like....thank you
xstitcher, thanks for the welcome!

l really love this forum