So what did I do wrong? I was baking 2 cakes in mixing bowls to create a 3-D basketball, figuring this would save me some carving. I put 2 mixes in each bowl and after all that time in the oven, they both came out liquid in the middle. Should I have used only 1 mix per bowl?

For my next try, would I be better off trying the bowl method with only 1 mix per bowl, or should I make several round cakes of various sizes and do more carving? Any tips for success with this? The cake needs to feed at least 20 people.

Thanks for any ideas!

The only way I ever got a cake to bake evenly in a mixing bowl was by using two metal skewers with a loop on one end. I put one skewer horizontally across the top of the mixing bowl and hang the second one straight down in the center of the batter. It's sort of like using a flower nail in a normal cake pan....it helps distribute the heat to the center so that you get more even baking.

Thanks for the tip - will try that tomorrow!

how big were the bowls? How high up was the batter in each bowl? 2 mixes in each one sounds like it might be too much batter, but thats going by the size of my mixing bowls, maybe you have large mixing bowls.

It would help if you had some kind of heating rod/core for the middle like the wonder mold comes with. It makes the cake bake up more evenly.
You could try and fashion one out of a nice thick strip of foil maybe.

I've a friend that does that for a makeshift heating core off and on. She shapes one end of the foil into 2 flat feet so her foil "rod" won't fall into the batter. It looks like a large foil T when she's finished shaping it.

Sorry, thats the only way I can describe it.

The bowls were from my old 5 qt. Kitchenaid, and the batter came up to about 3-4 inches from the top, probably too much.

Thanks for the tip about using foil as a heating core.