AHi everyone! I'm making a 12 inch cake for a kids birthday party this weekend and I plan to make the Hershey's perfect chocolate cake which was approved by the birthday boy. I have mostly baked 8 and 9 inch cakes so I want to make sure I'm able to nail this when I starts baking. I'm planning to double the recipe and make 4 layers in 12 inch pans. I will have to make this in two batches as I don't have an oven that can fit 4 12 inch pans at the same time. Do you think the layers will have reasonable height or should I multiply the recipe by 2.5? When I made the cake in the 9 inch pans it was tall, so I'm guessing I should be fine but I could be wrong. Any advice on this?

Also, should I reduce the oven temperature to 300 or 325 to ensure even cooking and avoid doming? I do plan to use the baking strips and flower nail.

I found this link recently when I had problems baking a recipe in different sized pans. I haven't tried converting a recipe yet myself, but I'm pretty sure I got this link somewhere here on CC:

ww.cakebaker.co.uk/baking-tin-size-conversion-calculator.html

Red, thank you so much for the web site. It looks wonderful. You just need another w to get there, as in www.cakebaker.co.uk/baking-tin-size-conversion-calculator.html

AWhat do you use the flower nail in the cake for? Interesting....

AYou put it in the middle of a larger cake pan. It conducts heat so that the cake bakes more evenly in the center...at least theoretically.

Thank you, I fixed my bookmark with that extra w.

ASo here's what I ended up doing: I made 1.5x the recipe in two 12 inch pans. I made two batches that gave me four layers. I used only three of them because the layers were so tall. Next time, I won't bother scaling the recipe if using 12 inch pans. I totally forgot to place the baking core in the pan, but I did use the baking strips for the first time and reduced the temperature to 325. I baked the cakes for an hour. They came out perfectly and did not dome at all. The cake was a hit, yay!

[IMG]http://cakecentral.com/content/type/61/id/2972137/width/200/height/400[/IMG]

AI'm sorryyy first time I join a cake forum or any forum for that matter :) my question is: Can I use the recipe for 2 12 inch pans instead of 2 9 inch pans without having to adjust the recipe?? Thank u in advance

AHi, when I made 1.5 x the recipe I got four 12 inch layers but used only 3 because each layer rose more than expected. I think you can use the original recipe in 12 inch pans without a problem.

You should only fill the pan up 1/2 to 2/3 way up. Seems to me if you did just one of the recipe, you would not have to cook it as long as you cooked the 1 and 1/2 of the Hershey's cake recipe.  This sounds wonderful to me. I have made the Hershey's cake and always get compliments about how moist this cake is. I always use peanut butter icing for this cake!!

BTW, the cake looks cute!! Great job!!!