I can get the 2" cakes to come out just fine. I'm doubting my process of baking a 3" cake layer (2 8" rounds). I have a flour nail in the center and soaked towel strips around the pans. I live in higher altitude (UT) so I started at 350F for the 1st half an hour and then lowered to 325F. It's now been about an hour and while the cakes are perfectly level and exactly to the rim...they are still uncooked in the middle. I worry about over baking them.
Do you start with higher temp when baking a 3" layer? Am I just being impatient and should give it another 10 min... How much longer does a 3" cake usually take versus same round in 2" layer?

For my 8 inch by 3 inch high cakes (and this is also what I teach all of my cake students) Strips (Bake Even or some use the towls like you said), 325 for usually an hour and 15 minutes. I am able to do it in my oven for about an hour and 10 minutes with the Bake Even strips. With that said, if you are finding it takes more then about an hour and15 to hour and 20 I would get yourself a hanging oven thermometor and test your oven temperature, your oven might be running a bit cool.

Hope this helps. And as for time difference it can vary on size, kind of cake batter sometimes also effects it.

Thanks! I must have had cake on the brain when I wrote "flour nail" I meant flower nail of course. They both sank a bit in the center after 1 h 15 min in the oven...probably because I went and poked them with a toothpick way too early, ugh. They are both about 2.75" high which is the best for me so far!

Oh, no!!! I have a 3" high, 10" diameter round pan in the oven as I type this. I did insert the flower nail, but forgot the strips on the outside of the pan. Did I ruin this???????????????? Will it probably be too try???????????

KayMc, how did it turn out? How long did a 10x3" take to bake? Yesterday was my 1st time using the strips...I've never had cakes so level (until I poked them)...I'm a believer now.

luckyblueeye

I love the baking strips, and have used those. But I have never heard of using towel strips. Is that literally strips of a towel? Can you explain the process?

Sorry KayMac I was not awake or I would have answered this sooner. No, in fact some people use the nails to replace the wraps. I just have always used them together when it came to rounds.

ShakyCakes....A few of my students have tried it and what they did was got a thick dish towl, cut the strips about 4 inches wide. Then fold them in half so it was 2 inches wide and sewed it. They made it as long as they needed to. But then it was double thick. Then they just soaked it in water and wrapped it around the pan, bought some tpins and tpinned it shut. It worked really well for them. I have not personally tired it though.

I bought 3 inch pans some years back, and ended up donating them to the sally ann. I could never get those suckers to bake a cake properly.

I used flower nails, towel strips, or baking strips. I've tried the whole shebang of suggestions for 3 inch pans. I baked at 325, but my cakes always sank in the middle, or the edges would be overdone.

I have two oven thermometers and my oven temp itself is also spot on. Yet the 3 inchers would never bake a decent cake. If I use a 2 incher, a loaf pan, or even a bundt pan, my cakes bake up just fine. Its quite perplexing.


Oh and PS to the poster that asked about towel strips. I use old towels, long ones preferred, and cut them into long wide strips. I fold the strips so they're kind of thickish, soak them good in warm water, give them a bit of a wring out, then wrap them around the pans the same as you would the wilton strips. I use large T pins for attaching the ends.

Warchild. I can get them to bake just fine for MOST cake recipes. I have a few like the chocolate cake that I get requests for ALLLLL the time, can NOT be made in batches to go in anything bigger then a 2 inch pan. I don't think I will keep my 3's much longer. I want 2's so that while I have to bake a bit more they don't take as long and I can get really tall cakes by torting the 2's.

i am new to baking, and my 3" cake sank in the middle. What did I do wrong?

Shakycakes99, my towel strips were just long cuts out of an old bath towel...hand towels aren't long enough to go around an 8" pan. I soaked them, barely squeezed any water out...left them very wet. I didn't even use any pins to attach, just wrapped them around pretty tightly and folded the corner in right against the pan. They worked very nicely and were free
I'm glad that I haven't bought a set of round pans yet...I thought that I wanted a 3" high set...now I'm pretty convinced that 2" rounds are better for me. These 2 8x3"s are my first round pans, I guess I can always cook a 2" cake in them and not fill quite so high?
Thanks everyone, I feel SO much better after reading everyone else's struggles with thicker cakes...it's not just me

When I bake a 3" pan, I also use the flower nail and baking strips while baking at 325.

When I said I have problems it is only with specific chocolate cake batters. When I use a cake mix I have NO problems doing chocolate in a 3 inch pan. It is a batter that you put hot water in at the very end and is VERY thin, I have found that it sinks in the middle, it is the only one I have a problem with. For me it is just the time it takes to bake can sometimes be an hour and half or more for some of the bigger ones and I get sooo tired of that when I am doing several cakes. I am a person who likes more filling to their cakes and so I like doing the 2's plus the cooking time is so much shorter.

All my pans (except a set of 9 x 2 wiltons I inherited) are 3" high, and this seems to be the industry standard in Australia.

Additionally, for most wedding cakes, we make mud cakes - which are very dense and take a LOT of baking!

So, I would say that it comes down to the type of cake you are making. For example, I never make sponge cakes in a 3" pan, but I do make my chocolate cakes, scratrch WASC and red velvet etc. Also - all my cakes are scratch cakes, no packet/box mixes.

For my 3" heavy mud cakes, I use flower nail(s) and heating cores, plus my version of this cake pan wrap things (which are only 2" high) - which is the same as using wet towels. I also sometimes add a foil top to the pan to prevent overbrowning, I use a fan-forced oven, and I also place a bowl of water in the bottom of my oven when I bake cakes.

HTH!

AEvoir, what kind of baking times are you getting for your 3 inch heavy mud cakes?

If your cakes are always sinking no matter what you try; nails, cores, strips, lower temp etc this could be a sign that you're using too much raising agent- this presents more obviously in smaller cakes; it causes too much rise in the first stages of baking which then colapses before a stable crumb can develop, try reducing your baking powder/soda and see if that helps, reduce it by half to begin with (I'm assuming you're baking from scratch- I don't know what you can do if you're using mixes- maybe let the batter stand for 10 mins before putting in the oven then mix it again quickly to let some of the bubbles out?)

Some of my recipies are very liquid and rely on a lot or raising agent - they simply don't work in 3" pan, I have to make 3x1" seperately and stack them

AI bake with only 3" pans, on 275. An 8" takes about an hour. They come out perfect and moist.