Hi All,
I'm very new to "caking" and I love, love it but I'm having a few issues so I thought why not ask the cake angels on this forum you guys are so awesome and I'm so impressed with all the helpful information on this website. Well here is my issue... I use the Wilton 2" deep pans and I use the Cake Mix Doctor book for almost every recipe and the layers always come out really thin. So my question is how do I get my layers thick it's usually a recipe that calls for 3 9" pans also let me note I don't grease the sides of my pans but that still doesn't help. Am I supposed to be baking double the recipe? Any help that anyone can provide will be much appreciated.

What size pans/how many are you trying to fill with a typical CMD recipe? I usually make 2 8" cake layers with a recipe, unless it really has a lot of additional ingredients. if you are trying to get 3 9" layers, they will be very thin.

All the layer cakes usually call for three 9" pans. Should I change the recipe to two 9" pans instead and then split the layers for the cake to appear that is has more than 2 layers? The reason I ask this is because I'm doing a wedding cake in a couple of weeks12" and 9" rounds and need the cake tiers to be tall and I'm going to use the wedding cake recipe in CMD book but want to know how many layers I'm going to need to make.

I have been doing 2 pans for the CMD recipes, the cake still settles , I think I wouldn't tort the layers if doing 3 pans...I do tort with 2 pans per recipe.

are you filling your pand 1/2 - 3/4 full of batter? if not then you won't get the 2" cakes.

Here is a chart that list how many cups of batter you need per pan. Hopefully this helps you get the higher layers that you want.

http://www.wilton.com/cakes/making-cakes/baking-wedding-cake-2-inch-pans.cfm

so for the 9" you'll need 5-1/2 cups of batter and for the 12" you'll need 7-1/2 cups

hope this helps.

I have always used 2 8-inch pans for my Cake Doctor recipes.

I definitely over fill my pans, like 2/3 full.

Just for reference a standard box mix makes between 3 and 4 cups of batter. So for 5 1/2 cups of batter you'd need at least a batch and a half.

Hey Kelly is that a WASC recipe or straight box mix? Just curious because my DH without extended doesn't yield 5 cups if that's straight box, I'd love to know your trick?

I have been doing 2 pans for the CMD recipes, the cake still settles , I think I wouldn't tort the layers if doing 3 pans...I do tort with 2 pans per recipe.

Thank you so much for your help. You guys are like the "Cake Angels" on this site! Whew I'm so happy this site is here! So much to learn! I will do 2 cake pans going forward. I'm glad it's not me or if I'm doing 3 then do a batch and a half as suggested by Sillywabitz. Thanks again!

Wouldn't it be so much nicer if cake recipes had how much batter they made, rather than the sizes of cake pans to use? I always ignore the cake pan size and go with batter amounts myself.