I'll be making one of these (in the Wilton pan) for my baby's first bday the end of May but plan to do one practice one next week. Any tips to make it come out perfectly? And how do I ice the top.....it's grooved, right.......doesn't htat make it harder.......how do I get inside the grooves? So far I've only iced regular round cakes with Wilton BC.

Make sure you follow directions regarding cake release--it makes all the difference. The top comes out easily, but the bottom sometimes wants to stick. It takes two cake mixes to really fill both sides.

Both the top and the bottom have grooves. Use them as a decorating guide--I use different colors of frosting and follow the lines around in a swirl on the top or use the star tip to drop stars all along the top (that takes a loooooooooooong time!).

A practice one will help you understand how the pan does and how much time it will take to decorate.

Good luck!

I've made 3 of these already and my very first was a flop. Be sure to thoroughly grease these up, I used Crisco and Flour and that worked the best. My biggest tip is doing each side separately, for some reason (maybe it's just me) but my sides baked unevenly so one was much drier and overbaked than the other. I just do the bottom first, let it cool, take it out and than do the top. The 3rd one I made, I did it this way and it came out perfect.

As for icing, if you're not trying to do anything too fancy, the grooves are fine, they won't mess you up at all. Just use a spatula and do it up nice.