I have a 3 tiered wedding cake for this Saturday. Last night I baked the bottom tier (2 pans) - used aztomcat's recipe for Heavenly Pumpkin Spice cake which I've used before and it's been fine. Well last night, I waited about 20 minutes after removing the 12" round pans from the oven, flipped them out onto cooling racks and less than 2 minutes later, they both split into about 3 pieces.

What the heck did I do wrong? I have to rebake them tonight, but I don't want the same thing to happen again. Did I overbake them, underbake them, not cool long enough before flipping them out of the pan???? Any thoughts or ideas to try to avoid this tonight would be much appreciated. I'm under a ton of stress right now and I don't need this to worry about also!

I used flower picks and bake even strips on both, if that makes any difference. They split from right in the center outward.

Thanks in advance!!

how did you flip I place a rack on the pan and then flip... remove pan ..then take the other cooling rack and place on top of the cake so you make a sandwich rack cake rack and flip again and let cool..... if you do not do that last flip and your cake had a bump in the middle it could crack.

Thanks for the replies. I did place the rack over the top of the pan, then flipped it onto the rack. However, I didn't flip it back onto another rack immediately and it had a slightly rounded top, so I'm thinking that's probably the problem. I'm going to try cooling it completely in the pan tonight first before removing it, then make sure I flip it back onto it's bottom and see if that helps.

Chance are it was the rounded top. When you flip it down with the rounded top down, the sides that are thinner don't have anything to support them and gravity will often push them down and slip the cake.

I would agree with the above posters, cooling on the bottom side of the cake should solve your problem. But I personally would only wait about 10 minutes before removing from the pan and then wrapping it while still warm to avoid moisture loss. I do this by putting Saran Wrap (no name of course!) directly on the cooling rack that your cake bottom will eventually sit on. Cap pan with naked rack, turn over, sandwich with plastic covered rack and flip. Pull your excess edges over your cake and add another layer of plastic over the top to seal. This way your cake is right side up, and sealed for a moist cake! I know this is more info than you asked for, but hopefully you find it helpful.