OMG! Half round 16 and 18 inch pans?? Genius!! I never even thought of this! My freezer is so small (side by side refrigerator)...nothing that large could ever fit...but half rounds?? A whole new world has just opened it's freezer doors!

....good info on the 1/2 circles ........

I'd be careful using `1/2 rounds. Yrs ago I spent big bucks to have both 16 and 18" 1/2 rounds - Magic Line (a top brand in those days long before Fat Daddio) and I had nothing but trouble. The 2 halves did not make a round - it was more of an oval. I ended up having to make another sq cake to cut into stripes, putting a 1" strip between the two halves

I have a half-round 18" pan, it's great.

I've propped the door of the oven open and turned it off before if the cake wasn't done and I needed to go out. That works as long as you can figure that the oven will cool down as the cake finishes baking. You have to time it right.

I'm thinking that at least half of this thread is nothing more than BS, if not more. This just has to be a joke. I'd question if it was trolling but I know better since everyone has been members for a while. Maybe I should just open my eyes to the craziness and try some of these things mentioned so I can go down in flames with an epic fail.

I don't know what to say to that...everything that I put is stuff that I've done and have been successful with, so if it doesn't work for you then I don't know what to tell you.

Well, it came out....a bit lopsided.
I really should have turned the pan half way though the cooking if I'd had had my wits about me.

It's a lovely 3 inches on one side and just under 2 on the other...man, that is a lot of wasted cake when I level on Saturday.
Well, not wasted. I do have a lot of little ones that are already asking for some cake scraps. Patience, my children, patience.

My husband offered to 'trim' the edge off my brand spanking new Fat Daddio and I declined his offer. He then walked to my oven, pulled out my rack and took it to the garage. He emerged three minutes later with it minus the back angle...he flattened it.

I watched him take my empty pan and do a complete clearance test.
I'm good...no more touching anything.

Here's hoping my the layer I cook tonight will be flatty-flat flat.

mommachris

LOL costumeczar you are my cake hero!! you just go your self a new blog follower lol and your kinda local

I only fear the pie...

If you are putting so many cake pans in the oven at the same time, how do you figure all the bake times for all the different sizes, especially when your sticking more cakes in as soon as one is done?. I tried this one time and it was a disaster. Help! It sounds so much faster to fill your oven than one at a time.

I can get a full 4-tier 6-8-10-12 two layers each in my oven at one time. I bought an extra rack and I put the newly filled cake pans in when they're ready to put in even if something else is in there already. You just have to pay attention to what's in there and what's done. I don't time anything anymore, I've been baking long enough that I can tell when they're done by looking at the layers.

The one thing to remember is that every oven is different, so you need to figure out if yours has a hot spot. That would just mean that you have to watch out for pns that are in that part of hte oven so that they don't bake unevenly. Move them around, turn the pans halfway through baking, etc.

You can take pans out when the cakes are halfway done to move them from rack to rack, too. That way if you have a part of the oven that stays hotter you can avoid having things bake unevenly. The top part of my oven is hotter, so I move things from rack to rack if I need to.

My disclaimer on all of this is that I've been doing this for 15 years and I know what I'm doing. You can mess with things if you have the understanding of what you're messing with. If you're not sure, be careful and see how it works for you, then adapt it to your own methods.

I forgot to add that I set the oven at 365 when I'm going to be taking things in and out and opening the door a lot. If I end up with only two larger tiers that are finishing up I'll drop the temp down, but if the door will be opening and closing a lot while I have a lot of pans in there I'll keep it higher.

Yesterday I baked off three wedding cakes, 11 tiers all together, in about 5 hours.