I need a lesson on cake pans mine are about 30 years old, i'm going to buy 2 8 or 10 in, when i watch cake decorating i can't remember do you layer say 4 seperate cakes or do they have higher ones, really don't know. thanks

You could buy 3 inch deep pans.

I like to layer them that way I don't have to cut in order to fill them

What I usually do is just buy the 3 inch pans and just torte and fill and usual. Once with the filling and icing it looks pretty thick. But for topsy turvy's it is recommended to use 2 cakes that way you can carve them in that topsy shape. Hope this helps