hi everyone. i read somewhere that by using a flower nail when baking your cake it helos heat the core and bake more evenly. when i tried it though the cake did not cook imediatly around the nail? what have I done? what is the corect procedure? are you meant to cover the nail? Please help as I have had to go back to not using one and would love to figure it out as with the bigger cakes I can see it would be a much better way to cook.
thankyou

No, you don't cover the nail, you just insert flat side down in the center of the cake...I use one all the time. When you flip your cake out of the pan, just pull it out.

Be sure to grease the flower nail as you would grease the pan. Turn it upside down,so the flat side of the nail is lying on the pan bottom. Pour in the batter to 1/2 or 2/3 full (how deep you prefer it) and bake. I use two or three nails in a larger cake (say a 10" or 12" round and bigger). Once you turn the cakes onto the cooling rack, the nail should some right out when you pull on the flat part, leaving a very small hole in the cake from the nail part.

Just wanted to add my 2 cents.........I do this all of the time and it works awesome! No more saggy middles in my cakes! I use them in everything over a 10'' cake.

I use the flower nail all the time too. If it is a larger pan, then I definately use more than one. I grease it, flour it, than insert put bottom side down with the "pin" part sticking up. A neat trick that I learned from CC was that if I am using parchment paper on the bottom of my pan, put the greased and floured nail on the bottom of the pan and then poke the "pin" part thru the parchment paper. Easy clean up. HTH

I also forgot to say my nail went a bit funny in colour like it tarnished? I have noe need for it until i get to the big boy size tins 11" and bigger so should I be using more than 1 do you think? I did as described inserted pointy end up at the base and pulled out when cooked but the area around the pin was goey? but the rest of the cake cooked, maybe it was to early, but is it normal for the pin to discolor? that is probably what freaked me out the most and pout me off using it again. I slow bake all my cakes at 160 degrees (310 farenheit) which gives me incredibly moist delicious cakes. could this also have some effect on the nail method?
thanks for your help

I use a nail all the time when the pan is over 10" - I'm not so sure about baking at 310 degrees though. That seems pretty low. I don't think I've ever attempted to bake one at lower than 325.

I agree with what everyone else has said. I use the nail all the time and bake @ 325. Maybe just add a few minutes to you bake time when baking at 310? One of my nails tarnished to, so I think it's ok. I still use mine. HTH

In more than 40 years of baking, I have never used a fower nail. And don't plan to start. I do bake large cakes (14/16) at 300.

I also use flower nails and I started using them very recently. And I'm really happy with the result. I use greese proof paper to line my cake pans. I greese the flower nail and before I line the bottom, I insert the flower nail through the paper. And then line the paper with the flower nail.

hope it makes sence.

I had a similar result when I used flower nails in my 14"cake. The cake sunk just a little in the middle, even though it was cooked all the way through. Not quite sure what happened. So I quit using the nails and my cakes have come out fine ever since. However I've never cooked a cake larger than 14".