Hello
I just baked a 12" round cake in a 2" tall pan with a flower nail in center( first time trying the flower nail)
I baked at 350 for 40 min; then dropped temp to 325 for additional 10 minutes. The cake rose beautifully; and is done; but the top of the cake cracked/split almost all the way across.

Does anyone happen to know what I did wrong? I tried to include a pic..hope it worked

Thanks for your help

Cathy

That happens often to my chocolate cakes. Once I top it off....the split or crack is gone.

Hi Debbie

Thank you so much for your reply
The crack is real deep; and seems to have started in center where the flower nail is. I don't think it can be corrected when I level the cake

Cathy

I bake at 325 the entire time...before I did that I had splits as well. I use a flower nail but I found using wax paper on the bottom of the pan works wonderfully. Before that i had a huge problem with the edges falling apart. Goo luck!!

Unfortunately a cake can split like that for a number of reasons. The basic reason is the cake cracks due to how the cake rises.

One is uneven cooking--the sides and the top are cooking at different rates. This could be due to how the cake was placed in the oven. Uneven cooking could result from part of the pan being too close to a heating element.

Ingredient temperature could be another. Were your ingredients all at room temperature? Cold ingredients could impact how the cake rises causing the top of the cake to split.

Oven temperature is another. If it is too hot the surface of the cake sets too quickly. The middle still has to cook and as a result the top splits to account for the continued expansion from the still cooking center. A flower nail would not necessarily address this issue. If it is too hot the surface will still set before the middle of the cake has fully expanded. Do you have an oven thermometer to test if the oven is indeed 350 when you it to 350?