I baked a 12x18 1/2 and 1/2 sheet cake today - has anyone had trouble with the chocolate side not baking as quickly as the yellow....I left it in a little longer but was afraid the yellow would be overbaked....but toothpick from the chocolate was still not clean....any suggestions to avoiding this next time? Oh, I did use 2 flower nails in the center, too!

Are you saying that in the same pan you put two different kinds of cake batter? I've never done it that way. I just bake two different cakes and then put them together. I would definitely think that my chocolate and plain take different amounts of time to bake. Let us know how it comes out.

Yes, my Wilton instructor, as well as someone on anothe forum on this site, told us how to bake a half and half cake in the same pan. The technique worked perfectly....but the baking was off.

I do it all the time and don't have any problems with one side not baking.......by the way, you want to pull that out when the choc. side has crumbs stuck to the toothpick, not wet batter, but not a clean toothpick either or it will be overbaked.

I always pull the cakes out when there are crumbs on the tester and they come out moist, dense and delicious! Especially the chocolate!

Lets hope it worked....

I not only always bake two different flavors in the same pan, but I can't even remember a sheet cake that WASN'T two different flavors. It long ago became SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) to me.

I think people are more impressed that it's 2 flavors in one cake and it's less work for me.

Yes, chocolate cake takes a bit longer to bake. It also tends to rise higher than other cake flavors. But it was never an issue when I baked one of these half and half's up. For a 12x18, which takes 3 cake mixes, I always did 2 white and 1 chocolate. Because chocolate tends to rise higher, that means it would expand in the pan and take up abotu half of the space, making my 2/3 and 1/3 cake more like half and half by the time it was done.

I am interested in how you bake the two flavors in one pan...are they marbled together or totally separate?

I second that, how is it done?

I don't doubt you. It is just hard to believe that it works that way. I guess I'll have to try it for myself. I have found that sometimes in life we tend to complicate things, this is an easy one!

Here's a video that shows you how to do it:

excellent video ... that's exactly how I do it.

THanks for the info, great video and will definitely try it out!

yep, we do it all the time, except we take a knife of wooden spoon handle and marble the two together in the middle, that is my favorite piece. We have even done three colors in one pan. On that one I do have to draft another person to help pour all three colors at once. marble where the colors meet and surprise all when the cake is cut. works everytime, just like debi said. Hey deb hows the classes coming?

I have also taken foil and folded it up so I had a stiff piece. I then put it in the middle of the pan (short side) to measure where I need to fold it. It ends up looking like a "Z". This keeps the batter from separating. After I have both sides filled, I carefully lift the foil straight up and put any excess batter on the foil in the appropriate side.

I want to bake a sheet cake, I want to bake a pound cake. I need to know how much batter I need to make for a 9x13 sheet cake. I have recipes for bundt cake pans but no sheet cake. Please help.

ok, I am just worried the batter might not be enough.