I was turning the cake out of a 9" square ML pan. The cake inverted fine, but then the pan slipped out of my hands and landed on the cake with some degree of force. The cake is bulging a bit in the middle, directly where I hit it but also on the other side of the cake...kind of like it might be broken horizontally.

I was going to torte it anyway...do you think I should still torte it, or should I just trim it down and bake another half layer (if that makes sense) to replace the lost volume from this cake being smooshed. I am worried that in smashing it a bit I may have compacted it too much, the torted layers are going to be to thin. I'm also worried about the structural integrity.

This was the 2nd pan of a 9" cake, the first cake turned out fine and is a full 2" tall (and has already been torted). This one is maybe 1.5" tall, possibly a fraction less. The whole cake will be iced in BC and then covered in fondant, I'm worried this broken layer will cause a collapse...?

Any advice??

I hate to tell you this, but you're probably better off baking another layer. I really think the structural integrity of this one is shot.

Aww..come on...can't someone else chime in and give me the answer I want to hear??

joking!!!

You could try to torte it but I would still bake another...better safe than sorry.

What did you do and how did it turn out?

I would have tried torting it to see if it held together enough

I decided to rebake. I think that cake had it in for me - I didn't mention the fact that it had also shrunk, so I think I messed up something in my measurements, so it was smaller than the other layer too (I was going to adapt to that by trimming it turvy style.)

THEN, when I trimmed the edges there looked like there were undercooked (not raw) spots too (probably resulting from the above ingredient issue)...so between that and being compacted from the pan-drop, I didn't feel like it was going to be up to par, nevermind the fact that I was already worried that the weight of the fondant was going to cause a blowout.

Maybe the pan drop was the universe's way of telling me that cake was messed up! Thanks for asking! At least now I don't have to cook a dessert for Valentine's day .