I've been thinking a lot about my recipes and I am wondering what makes a good BASE recipe. I dont know alot about structure of cake...but what I do know is that box mix is EXTREMELY difficult to torte! Any suggestions or tips?

Actually, box cakes aren't all that much different from scratch. I prefer to use mixes because of the preservatives. Since I work full time and do cakes at night, sometimes I have to do them a few days earlier than I would like and I know they'll last longer.

It's always easier to torte a cake that's been refrigerated, so you might try that. If you just prefer to go with scratch, I've found that the WASC recipe tastes wonderful and is easy to work with.

Until you come up with a base recipe... Try torting your box cake while frozen. It makes them sooo much more stable.

Thanks for the advice...I torte frozen cake at my full time job because ALL of our cake is frozen. I hate it...I have a heck of a time no matter the cake...

I can never seem to get my cake even.

I think torting just takes practice. Here's what I do (for round cakes anyway): Place the cake on a turntable. I have a very long, sharp bread knife that I hold with the blade on the cake where I want to cut. I hold it in my hand with one finger entended along the back to hold it steady. I then lock my elbow against my body to keep my hand, and the knife, from moving. With my other hand, I slowly turn the turntable and score the cake with the knife all the way around, being careful not to apply too much pressure with the knife (you don't want the cake to move). Sometimes I go around a second time to make my score mark a little bit deeper. If you are going slowly and careful not to move the knife hand/arm, it will end up pretty even all the way around. Again, it might take a little practice. Then use the score mark to cut through the cake with that same knife in long, smooth, and slow strokes.

I used to use the Wilton cutter (the small one) and didn't really like it. I also wanted to learn how to do it with a knife so that I could always tort a cake, no matter what. Plus, in the end, once you get the hang of it, it's quicker and easier than using other tools (at least for me).

If you happen to not cut it even, just cut a little mark vertically somewhere on the cake (while they are still stacked together. When you stack them later with the filling between them, line up the marks on each layer so that they even each other out. This is, of course, assuming the cake is level before torting.

Good luck!

I take the pan I baked the cake in and put a in couple (or circles just a size smaller. Then I put the cake layer back in the pan and set my bread knife on the edge of the pan and use it for a guide to cut straight across. I started doing it this way when my husband put up clean dishes for me and my leveller was nowhere to be found. Bless his heart!

kmstreepey - thank you for your advice. I'll definitely give this a try.