Argh! I guess I overfill my pans. It seems like anymore all the cakes bubble over the edges of the pan while they are baking. I've got two in the oven right now and I am watching the batter slowly encroach upon the top edge. Its only a matter of time... Then the oven smells like burnt cake for days (god forbid I actually clean it out!). I swear I only fill them 1/2-2/3 full is that too much?

I use to have this problem. I started measuring using a 1 cup measuring cup when I filled my pans. Once I found that perfect amount I marked the outside of my pan by etching a fine line on it with my exacto knife. Now all I have to do is fill my pan to my "mark" and viola....the perfect amount of batter everytime.

sometimes mine do this to and the thing I try to keep thinking is think of all the cake balls I get to make with the extras!!And plus be glad they rise~I so would rather have a rising cake than one that didnt rise to the top and having to make a shorter cake! hint~I put a cookie pan on the bottom rack to help catch the over spills~helps with the clean up!! HTH

just get in the habit of putting a collar in your pan (a strip of parchment or waxed paper along the side of your cake (inside) that goes a couple inches taller than your pan) then at least you won't have the mess and you'll have nice tall cake layers (much more room for error when leveling them too lol)

Buy some taller pans

I use the 3" deep pans but I still bake two for each tier. They come out nice and tall and no possiblility of oven drips or fire. Once I overfilled my 9x13 which is only 2" deep and I was going to try to let it bake even though it had overflowed, but the batter on the element caught fire. I threw baking soda on it and it put it out with no damage to the oven, but of course I was left with a huge mess.

Glad I'm not the only one that does this! I had some catch on fire last week too. Thankfully it was only a small fire and it burned itself out (and a cake wasn't baking at the time). I'll have to try the collar idea. I'd love to buy taller pans, but I don't think that's in the budget right now! Thanks!