I'm having a hard time getting my cakes to fill a 2 inch pan and be level. I bake them at 325 but I still get this dome or they don't fill up the pan when they rise and i end up having to add more buttercream and fix them that way. Any tips on how to get the cakes level?

Are you using baking strips? What size pan?

Have you tried a flower nail or baking strips?

In order to get a taller layer, you'll need to add more batter...

Do you usually fill your pans 1/2 full, if so you'll want to try filling them 2/3 full.

To prevent the batter from possibly overflowing, you can collar your cake pans:

http://cakecentral.com/articles/101

HTH

It happens with any size pan and i've never tried the nail or strips...I have a cake this weekend, I'll try the nail b/c I have one and see how that goes. I fill them half way b/c i'm afraid of overflow but i'll try 2/3.

Thanks!

use the collar method to help stop overflow. makes all the difference when it comes to leveling if you can level it in the pan.

I fill my pans a little on the full side so the dome rises above the rim of the cake pan, and the sides of the cake are level with the sides of the pan. Then when I take it out of the oven, I use a large knife and slice off the dome using the pan rim as my guide. Voila! Level cake! (And plenty of cake scraps for my DH)

scraps are a must, each batch is hand tasted for quality! LOL