I thought the whole purpose of using the flower nail was so u wont have to level ur cakes.. well this was the first time i used it and boy my cake rose soooo much how can i keep my cake from rising so muck :0(

are you maybe filling the pan too much?

How full was your pan(s)?. I use 3 inch pans and use a flower nail so that my cake will get done all the way through. Never thought it had anything to do with making the batter rise??????? I fill my pan 2/3 full so my cakes do rise a little over the top of the pan. But it usually sinks a little while cooling. Generally no more than a 1/4 inch. I use a doctored and enhanced cake mix recipe I found here on cc that I add a box of instant pudding to. So the batter is really thick. I also use the bake even wraps and bake at 325 degrees. Most of my cakes come out even so I don't have to worry about a dome and/or cutting one off. I do torte and fill at times. Maybe someone with more experience will chime in.

what temperature did you cook it at?
Did you use bake even strips?
What size pan?
how many nails?

And you'll probably still have to level your cake, you just won't have to level it so much because it helps it from doming so much.

Besides too much batter in the pan, I've seen three other reasons for the nail not working.

1. Not enough grease on the nail(s)
2. Using nail(s) that have screw like grooves on the shaft. You need to use the plain ones.
3. Not enough nails used. One nail works in a small pan, but larger pans seem to need two, three or even four nails near the center.

Any of the above can cause the cake to actually climb the nail and rise higher than without the nail.

HTH!

You said your cake rose so much- I agree with the above answers- when it domes extreme, it means your oven is too hot, and chances are you did not have enough batter. Kinda like when you use 1 mix in a 9x13. It will always dome even with a nail. That's because there isn't enough batter. I don't think it is over filling- because I over fill mine all the time and they are still pretty straight across the top.

I have the nails that look like screws... I dont really know the size of the nails... I have a feeling i added too much batter in the pan.. in one pan is rose very high to the point where i can use it to make a baseball cap.. and the other rose but it looks more manageable where i can play with it a little :0( boy making cakes takes alot of practice..

Even with the nail, you still have to level the cake. The idea of the nail is to keep the cake from forming a really tall dome, so that when you level the cake, you don't have as much waste.

I use one nail per pan regardless of the size of the pan. I also bake at 325.

kneenah, it does take a lot of pratice to bake and decorate cakes. Plus some experimenting. But you are in the right place for asking questions, advice, learning techniques and getting ideas. The members of CC are awesome!

I bought these nails from a company that supplies baking product.. "Sidco"

I agree with all the above.
Get plain nails. Your cake is climbing up those nail grooves.
Bake at a lower temp. 325 as stated
I never level my cakes anymore. For a small dome I just let it settle flat. A little larger dome, I put wax paper on it and a cake pan with cans from the pantry in the pan. Flattens the cake right out. I suppose it may depend on how dense your cake mix is, but this will work for box and doctored box mixes.
Good luck and don't worry. It's just cake!

I have heard of the flower nail technique, but have never used it. It honestly sounds to me as if you are overloading your pan. I say you need to NOT over fill the pan and bring your temp down to 325.

I've never used nails but many on here use them with great success.

how do you treat the pans? I grease-only-no-flour. When baking, the heat element is at the bottom of the oven, so the heat is pushing the batter up the sides of the pan. Over the decades, I've learned the batter slides up the pan much more easily if the sides are only greased. The flour acts as a "stopper" that grabs the batter and somewhat holds it down, which gave me short sides and a high dome.

the day I accidentally forgot to flour the pans was the greatest discovery of my life!!! I've never looked back .... and never let a speck of flour touch my pans again!

I bake at 325 (in home oven) with baking strips on all size pans. No nails. (Not even in my 14x22 pan.)

Nails are only a heating core---in lieu of using the big wilton one. It does not eliminate a dome. I use a nail for all cakes bigger than an 8". I also bake at 325.

[quote="indydebi"] I grease-only-no-flour. When baking, the heat element is at the bottom of the oven, so the heat is pushing the batter up the sides of the pan. Over the decades, I've learned the batter slides up the pan much more easily if the sides are only greased. The flour acts as a "stopper" that grabs the batter and somewhat holds it down, which gave me short sides and a high dome.

Thanks indydebi. I will have to try that! I had been fairly successful with the flower nail until recently. I just realized that my latest problems have been since I switched to using a cake release that has a lot of flour in it! (I had thought it was the new cake recipes I had been trying, but then it happened on one of my tried-and-true recipes). I will try just greasing the flower nail and see how that works.

Time to bake a cake!

I know everyone has thier own way of doing things that works for them. I have tried the bake even strips and I couldn't get them to work for me, even though I'm sure it's just me not the strips. I have also tried the flower nail thing and it worked okay but not well enough that I really saw a difference.
So what I do now is I always bake at 325 for small or medium sized cakes and larger ones I bake at 300, it takes a long time but the cakes don't dome as much. When I take them out of the oven I use a clean kitchen towel and press down the top to even it out with the height of the pan. Then I take it out of the pan and wrap it up in plastic wrap let it cool upside down to room temp then put it in the fridge or freezer till I need to use them. It only worksif you don't overcook your cakes, over cooked cakes will just spring right back up when you try to press them down.
Just wanted to give you a different opinion, I always love to see everyones opinion. That way you can find what works best for you!

Never has a problem with the bake even strips...they've always kept my cakes fairly level. I still do some leveling but I don't have to chop off as much cake. The flower nail will NOT keep your cake level...that is not it's purpose. It just helps cook the center of a larger cake more quickly than it would have cooked with out it. That way when your whole cake is finished baking the center is done and the outside is not as dried out as it would have been if you were forced to bake the cake until the center was done.

Good luck