Oh, I am sooo frustrated! The last few cakes I have made have come out of the oven lop-sided. (I'm positive it is my oven baking unevenly, since this only began recently) I have tried switching the cakes in the oven half way through the baking time, but that is not working. I have been trying to level off the cakes, but apparently I'm not good at that when they are as uneven as they have been recently!
So here is my question....Is there anything I can do, short of buying a new oven (which is NOT in the budget right now!)? What about bake-even strips, or a flower nail? I have a wedding cake I'm doing for a friend next weekend that is 3 tiers and I'm having nightmares about the cake being uneven!
Thanks for your help!

I don't know it this will help at all but I did a tutorial on cake covering and it shows at the beginning how I take the tops off cakes and how to ensure you put the cake back together in the same place after you cut it into layers. Go to my blogspot (under my signature) and look down the right hand side for tutorials and click onto covering a cake and board. It might be useful in some way. I hope so!

I suggest you get an oven thermometer & check your tempaerature, I have to set my oven 25 degrees less, and the bake-even strips do help also. Also the cake levels by wilton helps to torte or even out you cake evenly.
http://www.wilton.com/store/site/product.cfm?id=3E30D67E-475A-BAC0-5792C543763E855E

http://www.wilton.com/store/site/product.cfm?id=3E30D68E-475A-BAC0-541667EE11BAE82B

Aine2-what a great tutorial! I love the idea of marking the cake with icing before you separate into layers!
jguilbeau- I do have an oven thermometer, but not a leveler. I used to have one, the smaller one, but that was hard for me to use. Maybe the larger one would work better for me.
I have used the flower nail for a 10inch cake, but I'm concerned that it won't work as well on a 12 inch cake? That's why I asked about the bake-even strips.
Thanks for the replies!

Are your cakes baking and just lopsided? If they're just recently baking up lopsided I wonder if your oven has been moved at all and possible gotten out of level. If not I'd say get an oven thermometer to check the temp. I leave one in my oven all the time. The strips are good and I use the flower nail/s always for my bigger than 8 inch cakes, but I use a Wilton leveler for removing domes and torting.

CarolAnn- yes, my cakes are baking and are just lopsided. Is there a way to check if the oven is level and fix it if necessary? I really believe most of my problem lies there!
ps....it was moved recently....spring cleaning!

Definitely use bake even strips and a flower nail - that will help, although if the problem is in your oven, it still may not make them perfect! I have the large cake leveler (recent purchase) and have used it once so far, and need to practice with it more. If you do get one, be careful because it will try to bend, or "bow" in the middle and cut uneven layers if you're not careful (at least on larger cakes).

I say try all the little tricks you can, do a test cake, and pray for the best!

Renaejrk wrote:

LOL! That's what I was thinking! Thanks for the help!

Get a level (you can buy them at home depot, walmart, etc.) and put it across your over rack (when it's cold of course) and look at the little bubble floating in middle. If the bubble is not in the center between the two lines, your oven is out of level from side to side. Do it again, but this time put the level from front to back (harder to read it but it can be done) and check again. If the bubble is off, it's out of level from front to back. I don't know how your oven levels, maybe there's feet on the bottom you can screw/unscrew or maybe check your owners' manual?

I hope that made sense....and I hope it helps.

arosstx-thanks, I'll have my husband try that. We don't have an owners' manual--oven came with the house, but maybe we can find it online!

I also had a problem with my cakes being lopsided, and found my rack was bowing. First, make sure your racks haven't bowed for some reason, my were because I store my cast iron skillets in my oven, had to switch racks and put my skillets elsewhere. Also, take a level and see how the stove sits side to side and front to back. Some stoves have legs that are ajustable. Sometimes when you move a stove, it never ends up where it was to begin with. It may just need a gentle bump to get it back into its original place.

I was having the same problem. It turned out that my oven was level. One of my racks is level. The other rack is about a 1/8" off. Who knows how that could happen. I put an aluminum trim strip under the back edge of my pan on that rack and use the flower nail and they turn out perfect.

I'd check the level of the oven first. Mine has adjustable feet so it was easy for my dh to level mine. I never pull it out from the wall so it's stayed leveled pretty good. If it gets off though the guys have to bring in the level. Fortunately, my racks are level if the stove is. I hope that's your problem cause it's an easy one to remedy.

And then I'd use the flower nail and/or bake strips. Good luck!

I am soooo glad I found this forum I hope it is okay that I right my question here too, I am new to this site and not sure of the forum "rules". I have baked about 7 cakes since 4-28-07 as I just started learning to decorate. My question is.....on wed night I baked two 8 in in the wilton pans that came out as PERFECT as I could ask for. I mean they both looked the same as each other and had perect easy to trim domes. Now last night I baked two sheet cakes for a poker table this weekend and they both came up sooooo lopsided. Like one corner is 1 inch thick and the other side is like 3 inches thick. This is also the first time I have made a red velvet cake. Does that make a difference? Also I mixed two of the same exact batters at the same time for each sheet. I didn't use strips as I had baked two cakes with those last week. Two seperate cakes so I used them 4 times and it didn't seem to make a difference with level so I was unsure of what their purpose was. But I also read where some of you said to use a flower nail???? I have some but how do you use that is it better than a core? Please help!!!!

I forgot to say I also over filled a pan a little one time so the cake would bake just barely higher than the pan and then took a thick thread to level the cake. Like I pushed the round pan to my belly to brace it then started on the opposite side and cut it with the thread. Does that make sense? If it does is that an okay way to do it?

Are you baking two cakes at the same time on the same rack ? If the pans touch, it can cause them to be lopsided.........

Here's another tip:

Fill your pans 3/4 full of batter. After you take the cake out of the oven, immediately cover it with a paper towel, then place something large and heavy on top of it. I use my Pampered Chef cutting board and then I put heavy objects on top of it. When the cake has rested in the pan for 10 minutes, remove the objects and you'll have a level cake (& dense too ).