I'm getting ready to start on a wedding cake this weekend. While surfing the web for tricks and tips I watched a video of a gal that did not slice her cakes in half before she stacked them.... so I dug a little deeper and watched a couple more videos and noticed that most of the videos people had very tall cake pans and they instructed you to measure at 2 inches to divide the cake to layer..... well... my cake pans are pretty shallow and most of the time are only about 2 inches..... I have always divided them..... some trouble with the larger pans with some trouble. I would LOVE to hear someone tell me that they do not split their 2 inch cakes and just fill,stack and frost them! Would make my life so much easier! LOL but I'm worried that there will be too much cake and not enough frosting? Although.... and maybe I'm using too much filling.... most of my cakes have been kind of mushy in the middle and it usually just falls apart.... so maybe if I don't split the 2 inch cakes it will hold up and people might actually get a "slice" of cake instead of a pile of crumbs and frosting?

Any helpful hints? Expert advice? Warnings?

Thanks fellow cakesters =)

p.s.
My goal is to have each tier be a little over 4 inches tall =)

I don't split mine, either.

Hi Jessica, I tend to split (tort) my layers for my wedding cakes. I generally use 2" pans that after leveling (or not if I remember to use the magic stripes around the outside of the pan or parchment sides) give me 2" layers. I make layers up to 14" in diameter.

I chill my layers after baking and it helps to make it easier to slice through. Then I separate and move the torted layers with the help of two wide cake spatulas (made by Wilton). I then fill the layers and restack the torted layers for each tier. When they return to room temperature, I find the cake tastes even better than when I don't chill/freeze and working with a cake with a tender crumb is so much easier (no cracking). Everyone seems to do it differently so I'm sure you'll find the method that works best for you. It's really a matter of taste.

Thanks for the tips, southerncross. There are some cakes that I like to torte and I'm never quite sure how to get it to work. But usually I just leave my 2" layers as is, too.

One of the CC members whom I admire greatly, Indydebi, has decades of experience catering and providing wedding cakes. If you look at these step by step photos of "How to Cut a Wedding Cake", you'll see that she does not tort.

http://cakecentral.com/gallery/93742/red-ribbon-cake-cutting-photo-5

I am a hobby baker, but from my personal experience as a middle class person in California, I can say that I have NEVER attended a wedding with torted layers. ALL of them were just like Indydebi's cake in the photo above.

My personal opinion is that torting and filling is a reflection of the custom cake trend that has occurred (with the help of TV and the internet) over the past 10-15 years. I have a cousin in the rural part of Kansas who has provided brides with wedding cakes for 35 years. ALL of them look like Indydebi's.