Ok Here Comes My Dumb Question!!
Decorating By domesticgoddess Updated 26 Feb 2006 , 9:51pm by ccoth
Baking cores. I know that you use them to help the cake bake even. I even saw a few people use flower nails? How do you use them? Won't it leave a hole in the cake? Help me out here ladies!! LOL!
Heather
With a flower nail, you simply place it head down in the pan and pour your batter into the pan. Bake as usual. When you invert the cake to get it out of the pan, just pluck the nail off the cake. It does leave a hole but it's not very big. It disappears as soon as you ice the cake!
I haven't used the baking core but I hear it's a bit more complicated.
I have used the baking core. All you do, is grease/flour the core (inside & out) just like you do the pan. Then pour the batter into the pan and a little into the core. When the cake is done you remove the core, empty the cake from the core and "plug" the hole. Then you can invert the cake as usual. It sounds more complicated than it really is. I haven't tried the nail yet. I learned about that here just recently.
The core can be a pain to grease and flour, so I use the Pam spray with flour in it for that piece and other pans that have lots of nooks and crannies. I haven't tried the nail yet.
The flower nail works great. Igrease my cake pan, put my batter in like normal. Then I spray the flower nail well with Pam and turning it upside down push it down through the batter until I hit the pan bottom right in the center of the pan. Then bake like normal. I found that when I placed the nail before filling the pan that my nail would tip. It does make the cake bake more evenly, especially when baking larger cakes.
I love the nail idea! How easy and we all have nails! I am going to try it tonight. Thanks
Are you sure it was touching the bottom of the pan? It has always worked for me...
I use the cake extender recipe when doing box cakes. The second time i used the nail, my cake sank in the center. Of course that was because i forgot to add the oil and water. 
I was wondering why the batter was sooo thick 
I haven't been using the nail that long, so I wonder too why yours sank? Doesn't that sometimes mean that it wasn't beaten long enough? hopefully someone with more experience can answer...
I put the nail in, then the parchment, then poured the scratch batter. Steph, I read somewhere that beating too much can make it sink. The recipe I used call to beat it for 3 minutes, stopping to scrape. I did, I even used a timer! I think 3 minutes was too long.
It is hard to say why it would sink? Scratch cakes are kind of crazy sometimes. They sink from a slammed door in the housde, or thudding feet next to the oven! I doubt it had anything to do with the flower nail.
I've used the core and it works just fine, just spray the inside and out with pam, set it in the pan fill it half way then fill your pan. I didn't know the flower nail trick before I bought the heating core otherwise I think I would have tried it out first.
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