Layered Cake Questions

Decorating By szakacs Updated 3 Apr 2009 , 9:10pm by __Jamie__

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szakacs Posted 3 Apr 2009 , 8:46pm
post #1 of 5

I've gone back a bunch of pages and cant find anything on this subject, please point me in the right direction.

I made a cake yesterday a 3 layer cake.

made each layer seperatly and when I took out of oven put a cloth over and pushed down to make the cake even(so I didnt have to level)

Well my cake had a little dipping in the center.

I made a damn of buttercream and filled with a strawberry cream filling.

Once I put all the layers on and cut into it(mind you I didnt frost the outside I was just trying a recipe and didnt have time to frost it)WASC

When I cut into the cake about 1/2 hour later the layers all started to shift and started oozing the filling a little where shifted. would this have not happened if I had frosted the outside?

The cake stands about 4"high is that a normal height.

Also the cake doesnt have much filling in it and would like to have a thicker filling in between the layers but seems like it would be too heavy to do so.

what kind of knife would I use to cut around the outside of the cake to even it before I frosted it?

All your help is appreciated or if you know of other posts that will be of help is also appreciated.
Thank you Thank you Thank you!!!!

4 replies
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leah_s Posted 3 Apr 2009 , 8:59pm
post #2 of 5

Well, I'll tackle a couple of your questions.

You can push down on the cake, but that won't really level it perfectly. For that you really need to cut the cake with a long serated knife, or ideally the Agbay.

Dipping in the center generally indicates an underbaked cake.

4" is the standard tier height.

You don't use any kind of knife to cut around the outside of the cake. I'm interpreting this as meaning to cut off the browned sides of the cake - don't.

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tiggy2 Posted 3 Apr 2009 , 8:59pm
post #3 of 5

I'm guessing you layers weren't completely level. You can use a long serrated knife or a cake leveler to level the tops.

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cinderspritzer Posted 3 Apr 2009 , 9:05pm
post #4 of 5

first off, you still have to level it even if you push the top down when you take it out of the oven. pushing the top still doesn't get them completely level.

i don't know for sure if that's what caused the shifting when you cut it, but it certainly might have been a contributing factor.

4'' is *average* height for a cake or tier, but there's no set height for them to be, as far as i know.

there are generally 4 layers of cake with 3 layers of filling inside so that the filling can be thin enough to prevent sliding, and it improves the ration of cake to filling.

for cutting around the outside, i use a serrated steak knife and cut around a cake board, if i decide i'm going to cut the edges of the cake off. normally though, i leave them on and scrape the roughness off with a handheld grater.


i dunno. i hope i offered some help at all.

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__Jamie__ Posted 3 Apr 2009 , 9:10pm
post #5 of 5

The oozing is probably from not letting the cakes cool completely. Not cool to where the pan is cool, or the outside of the cake is cool, but where the cake is cool all the way through, as in there is not one more possible degree cooler sitting at room temp that that cake could get. That's what I think. To everything else....what ^^^^^ they said.

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