Hi,

I am a new member here, though I have browsed the forums/tutorials a good deal.  I have read all the great reviews of Magic Line pans and am going to buy some soon. Even though these are great pans, should one still use bake-even strips? What about parchment in the bottom of pan?

I gather a lot of people use metal flower nail/s instead of the heating core from wilton, for larger cakes. If one was using a good pan like magic line, would a flower nail still be needed in a 12" pan? Or only with the larger, like 14 and 16"?

Thanks!

AI think that baking strips alone are sufficient for 12"..you can even make them out of household items. I have baked a 12" with that before and been successful. I use magic line pans exclusively. I'm sure there will be different opinions about it. I drop the temp down to 325 and just bake longer.

I use a lot of Magic Line pans.  I only use the bake even strips with 14" pans, but I do use Ateco heating cores (stainless steel blunt "nails") in all of my pans.  I usually put 2 in a 12" cake and bake at 325F.  Nice flat cakes done in the middle.