I have to ask this after seeing the post about turning the smooth bottom of the cake up - do you use the cake bottom without cutting the browned edge off?
I can't stand to see any browned-edge on a sliced piece of cake; I just want the color of the cake/filling . . . does this bother anyone else?

i cut off all the crust, even the bottom. gives a better look when cutting

Nope. It's like bread, it's supposed to have a bit of browning and crust. It's like the top of a good muffin...the best part!

i level mine in the pan anfter they have chilled in the fridge, flip out, turn over and use kitchen scissors to cut the edge off. i like the scissors better than a knife.

I'm like another caker...I only cut off the overhang if I happen to have any like if I maybe put a lil to much batter in the pan.. otherwise that's it. I usually don't have much of a crust/dark brown skin to begin with since i switched all my pans to magic line and the little crust that I do have seems to give my cake more structure and stability

I usually do not have to cut anything off of my cakes. I always use magi cake strips and the cakes usually bake up very even with a flat top.

the bottoms of my white cakes are never 'brown'. They come out a nice beautiful golden color .... sometimes as light as a pale yellow.

I also don't like to see brown inside a cut piece of cake, so I know what you mean. If the bottom of my cakes came out that brown, then it means I overbaked it and I'd throw it out and start over.

IndyDeb, your comment grabbed my attention. How long do you imagine it takes for a white cake cooked corrected (ie, no brown bottom fo, to having developed a brown bottom? I always assumed it was inevitable to have the brown bottom.

No browning here either, I use homemade baking strips and it works great.

thanks everyone; technically, I guess I should have said "golden" and not brown bottoms.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who doesn't like any inside color, other than the icing and/or filling - that means I'm not obsessive, right?
I don't use magic line pans, but if they result in no bottom color, they are on my list . . .

Yeah, browning perhaps is not the right word. Golden, absolutely.

I only cut off the "golden" sides, top and bottom if I want an absolutely white cake and my fillings are very pale. i agree that even the thin line of golden detracts from the overall effect on those cakes. If however, I have a chocolate or deeply coloured filling I don't bother to remove the crusts because the crust isn't noticable