First I made a 9x13 cake a few weeks back and used approx. a cake mix and a half. I had trouble with the center cooking. I went out and bought the heating core. Will this solve my problem? Do many people use these?


Second, dowels. I can undestand using them if you are not centering the top cake, say an 8in on top of a 10in, the weight wouldn't be distrubted evenly.
But do you have to use them if you are centering the cake on top? I'm not sure I understand the difference in putting an 8in cake on top of a 10in cake vs just using a double layer 10in.
does that make sense?

TIA

I just use my flower nail as a heating core. I've used it on my 1/4 and 1/2 sheet cakes and they come out great!

Uhmm.....question....when you put your flower nail in to bake with the cake,,how do you put the nail in?? I mean do you put the spike part in with the top out on top or the other way around??
I want to try this and I want to make sure I am doing it correctly.....

I put the flower nail in upside down. So the flat part is on the bottom of the cake pan with the pointy part pointing up. I pour the batter in around it and bake it. I let it cool on the rack for a few minutes before I pull the nail out. Oh, and I spray mine with Pam before I put it in.
I hope that helps!

Thanks crashdummy2! I was wondering how it was done as I've never done this before.... I will try this on my next cake.. thanks again!

You need to grease the flower nail on all sides, bottom too before you put it in your pan. I never use a heating core. They leave a ugly hole. Also I never use flower nails on sheet cakes either. You might want to check to see if the temp in your oven is right. It might be off some. Good luck~

That's definately my problem. My oven is this horrible chunk of metal from the 70's. It's at least 50 degrees off. And, it seems to vary day to day. But, we're renting a house and the land lord isn't about to replace the oven for little old me. But we'll show him. We're moving to an apartment with all new apliances. Muahahahaha!!! So, in the meantime it's a flower nail in the middle and Wilton's insulating bands around the outside for me! (Not to mention a temp. gauge in the oven!) And, the hole in the middle doesn't bother me. It just gets covered with icing anyway. And no one has yet to notice. Yay!

Since you bought the heating core, when you use it put batter inside to bake along with the cake, then you have a "plug" for the hole, and it never shows that way, either. Oh, be sure to put a release coating on the core inside and out!

Thanks guys for all the tips. I really hope it's not my oven it's only a year old. Everything else seems to bake fine. I'm using the convection setting on it as well. I guess I'll try the heating core and if that doesn't work, I'll be baking a second cake late at night! Usually on a 9x13 I just use one cake mix but I'd like it to be a tad bit thicker. Trial and error I guess. This is my first paying client so I'm just a wee bit nervous!

As far as the heater core goes--I just use my flower nail also. Actually, before I found CC, I never used a core at all. What would happen was that my 1/2 sheet cakes would get a huge crown in them. I never had a problem with them drying out or not baking in the middle. When I started using the flower nail--I mostly noticed that they are much, much more level. I do not have to cut anything off to get them level anymore.

As far as dowling goes. If I am doing a single layer on top of a single layer, then I will not dowel. If I'm doing double layers on top of a single or a double layer, I will dowel. Make sense? I kind of have the school of thought that if you are stacking a 8" layer on top of a 10" layer it's really no different than doing 2 layers of the same size.

The exception to this is if I'm putting a doll or a bear cake on top of something. I had a tragedy with a bear cake not dowelled for support and he ended up falling--YIKES!! It was horrible.

Lisa

I usually will put a dowell or two on any stacked cake just to keep the layers from shifting, not necessarily worrying about the top layer sinking.
Janice

I would use dowels to keep the cake from shifting and also to keep it from the top layer sinking into the bottom layer if the top layer is heavy. (I've had that happen, it was not fun!)