Hello Everyone,
I have another question. Does anyone ever have the problem of when you bake a cake it ends up with a huge bump or lump ontop of it? I was wondering if there is something I can do to "make" it bake more evenly? I have a cake leveling thing from Wilton that I use but it is there something else I can try also? Thanks For Your Input

Hi,
Sounds like you need to use the baking strips...Your cake will always come out level..it is high, but very flat on top.

Try it, you won't regret it... BTW did you get my email on the Clay Pot cake thingie ?

Yes Eve, I did get your message on the Clay Pot Cake. I Thank You very much for your instructions. Again Thank You for your help. I think I can get those at the Hobby Lobby here in South Texas. I will have to look into it.

Here's another tip... after you take it out of the oven, lay a clean towel over the top then use a cutting board to smush the hump into the cake. I usually put my cutting cutting board on top then a heavy pot and let it sit for five min. Comes out perfect every time!

Thanks For the tip peacockplace

Also what temperature are you baking on? Try dropping the temp 25 degrees and cooking longer. Depending on what flavor I bake depends on what temp I bake at. White and yellow cakes I can usually bake at 350, however chocolate and others I find I end up with a flatter cake at 325. Try both and see what works for you.

Another thing, what size pans are you using? It maybe that you need to get more heat into the middle of your pan. Try greasing a flower nail and put it in the middle of your pan (flat side down) Then add your batter and bake. It acts as a heating core and helps bring heat to the middle of your cake so it is cooking from the inside out.

Hope these ideas help you.

Leily

I am curious about this topic too. My spice cake looks like a hunchback and my chocolate cake has a slight indent. I'm at high altitude and trying to adjust my leavenings and that is helping somewhat. Lowering the temp also helped somewhat for the doming one. I'm trying to learn how to correctly "balance" (follow certain flour/sugar/fat/liquid ratios etc) in my cake recipes according to what the food scientists like Shirley Corriher (sp?) say since I should end up with level cakes this way. These ratios can also be found on baking911.com. Has anyone tried these out?

An inverted flower nail in the middle will totally take care of that!

I do something similar to peacock place. I put a damp paper towel on the cake as soon as it comes out of the oven. Then I place a slightly smaller pan on top and push down with gentle even pressure for 20-30 seconds and the hump is gone!

Berta

Sometimes I use the strips and sometimes I do the cake smushing with a hand towel folded over. I like to smush, it works great but only if you do it immediately after the cake comes out of the oven. It also helps if you sing "This is the way we smush our cakes, smush our cakes...smush our cakes." Dont question the song..just smush and sing.
Ohhh..and by srtip, I mean "bake magic strips." Dont confuse it with the other strip. Guarantee the first time you strip to make a cake, the wife will bring home a friend from work unexpectedly. It's really awkward. Really...really... awkward.

Well I have made some yellow cakes & the temp I have been cooking them on is 325 . I don't know if it is the oven or what, it is a gas stove & I have spent most of my life using electric, but I live in Navy housing so they provide a stove in the housing, which stinks because I have a nice electric one but I can't use it here. The temp the cake actually calls for is 350 . But I know it would cook way to fast and burn on that temp without cooking the middle. So maybe I should turn it down to 300?? I am using 9 inch round pans. Maybe I need to get better cake pans??? I baked 4 cakes yesterday because I am making a Pumpkin cake. 2 of the cakes came out great, and I didn't do anything and those were Bundt cakes. The other two cakes were 9 inch round ones. I drove around looking for the Baking strips & could not find them and Hobby Lobby was closed. But I tried the smashing thing & it seemed to work ok. I think I need to practice that more,lol. I will also have to try the flower nail thing & see how that works. I will also try to sing the next time, that might help huh??? LoL! You all have had some really good tips for me and I am very thankfull that if I need help someone will be here to give me it. Thanks

If the cake has a big hump, just level it while still in the pan. Presto! Level cake in one easy step.

I tried the smush thing. I tried twice once with a scratch cake and once with a box cake. Both cakes were extemely moist, but one collapsed and the other one stuck to the pan. I'm guessing the smushing trapped a little too much steam? Dunno. It works for others. Maybe it's the humidity?

I'm very afraid to really try the smushing thing. I very timidly tried it yesterday but just couldn't really do it. Could it have something to do with the fact that I was taking the cake out of the oven at 5:30 for a 6:30 class and didn't want to destroy it with no time left to make another? You tell me.

I also used the flower nail yesterday (10" square pan) and still had a hump, though not as big as it would have been otherwise. I don't have large bake-even strips. They're still on my wish list.

I've tried just turning down my oven, and that doesn't work either.

It took me abou four months to try it... but it works so well! Just make sure what ever you are using to smuch the cake in is larger than the cake pan. That way it will be even all over. I use a glass cutting board.