So I was at the Wilton Tent sale and I saw the Decorator Preferred cake pans and I thought they were the Performance pans. If you have ever been to the sale, it is a madhouse. I grabbed two sets and threw them in my cart and was home before I looked at them. They are 3 inches deep. It says you are supposed to torte and fill the tiers, rather than stack them and use a heating core.
I am doing a wedding cake this weekend and wanted to use these pans, but I don't know how to do all that fancy stuff. Do you really need to use a heating core? Is it really easier to torte a 3" high cake to make it 4" or to just stack cakes? Should I just do what I know? I am toying with baking the 6" round in the 3" pan and testing it out, but torting a 6" cake is whole lot easier than a 16"!!!
Any suggestions?
I use the 3" pans but I still bake two layers, level and then put filling between the two. I use a flower nail in the middle instead of a heating core.
I don't think it's as easy to get a 4" layer by baking the 3" and torting and filling...even in the picture on the pan insert on Wilton's set, the tiers don't look that tall.
Oh - thank you for replying!!! I hope you don't mind if I ask some followup questions. Do you level the cakes to 2" tall then? Do you use a flower nail in all sizes or just 10" and up?
I also use the 3 inch pans and do 2 layers. I only fill the pans slightly more than halfway so that the layers are around 2 inches tall after baking. I don't use a flower nail at all, or heating core. I just bake at 300 degrees and they turn out perfect every time.
Hi, all my cake tins are 3" high. I bake all in one upto 10" and above that in two. I use flower nails for all my cakes.
I level the top and torte the cakes twice. Once everything's done, the hight is 3" or a bit more.
Sorry, I'm pretty new at this--do you end up with a 4-layer tier? I am trying to figure out what to do with mine. I have a gigantic (to me!) 12" that baked to 2" and I'm trying to determine whether to make it a 2 layer tier and match the rest, or to bake another and make each tier higher (I don't really want a low cake, but I'll have much more cake than this wedding needs!)
WWYD?
Sorry if I was not very clear. There are three layer and two fillings. That is Cake- Filling - Cake - Filling - Cake.
I bake bigger cakes more than 10" in two halves. One half cut in half and same with the other one and end up having layers as before.
When you say you bake anything over 10" in 2 "halves" do you mean semi-circles? I was thinking, if I had two 10" circles and torted/filled each, I'd also have a filling layer when I stack those two 2-layer circles (for 4 layers of cake).
I guess I'm wondering if I could cut 3 layers out of just a 2" cake (I'm sure I can, but wouldn't it be difficult?) 
All of my cake pans are 3" pans. That way I can either make a 3" layer and tort, or I can make 2" layers and fill and stack them. Either way, I like tall cake tiers and haven't had any complaints from customers.
I don't want to fool with thin layers - too much of a chance of the thinner layers breaking and falling apart. Not to mention being able to achieve equal sized layers. Maybe when I can afford an Agbay I might consider it, but for now, I just make thinner layers.
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