My cake has stiff outer edges!
Does anyone know what could be causing this? Am I overbaking?

I have noticed this happens on my larger cakes - 12 to 14 inches.

I set my oven to 325 and I use an oven thermometer. I am baking according to the time on the instructions that came with the cake pans.
50 to 60 minutes

Could this be caused by opening the oven door too many times during baking?
Please help!!

Hi Kim,

Because the centre in the larger cakes takes longer to cook, the outsides tend to harden more.

Perhaps try putting your flower nail upside down sticking up through the centre of the cake - this helps speed the cooking of the centre of the cake and evens out the bake. The cake cooks all over quicker and less time in the oven.

Hope this helps,

Welcome to CC! With any pan 10" or larger I use baking strips. They are strips of heat-proof fabric that you soak in water and then wrap and secure around the outside of the pans. This keeps the heat coming from the metal from cooking the cake too well while the inside is still undone. Also, using an inverted flower nail (I cover mine snugly with foil) placed in the center, before you pour in the batter, will also cause the cake to cook more evenly. These are two things that I do with my larger cakes and I never have a problem with the hard sides. Hope this helps!

Also you must "bake until done" . Do not bake by elapsed time.

Take a bath towel, strip it up and wet the strips with cold water, ring out loosely. Place around the edge of your pan.

Works for me!

Jen

Definitely don't open the oven door too much- that can mess with things... also- i wouldn't necessarily stick with the time in the book- go by the done-ness of the cake- so, for example a toothpick comes out clean, or when you press gently on the middle of the cake, it springs back up and doesn't sink. Those are the signals i look for!

Sometime the edges on my cake are a little hard, but after wrapping it in saran it softens. As long as the edges aren't super hard right after you take the cake out, i think it is fine. Mine usually come out "medium" and then as they cool get a bit hard, then i wrap the cakes and they get soft again by the time they are ready to be leveled etc.

Another note- you may need to use a rose nail or a heating core for those larger cakes so the center cooks in time with the outer edges. Do a search for both of those items for how to use them- i think that will help you a lot!

hope that helps!!

The strips PennySue are referring to are called Magic Line Strips. They are made of a metalic cloth that you soak in water, then place around your pan with a pin and bake cake as usual. The reason this works is because your oven is baking your cake from the outside metal edge of your pan to the inside middle. The heat will sometimes make your cake bulge in the middle. When you use this magic strip it will eliminate both hard edge and bulging middle. I never bake without these. You can buy them wherever they sell cake supplies.

The metalic strips that I have are over 10 years old. I don't bake on a weekly basis, but I do use them often. The metalic helps deflect the heat away from pan.

I use the flower nail on all of my cakes regardless of size. This has happened to me a few times and I've found that if I wrap the warm cake in plastic wrap and refrigerate it then it softens right up.

You can also make a simple syrup I think it's 50% water 50% sugar add some flavoring and boil till it's thicker a few minutes not real long and brush the cake with that before you frost. It moistens cakes up if you have to hold them over a couple days , I do it for my Wedding cakes I bake on Thursday for Saturday.