I am making two different half sheet cakes for a Breast Cancer charity event next week and I have never made one in that dimension. Both cakes will be scratch and I am concerned about how to bake them. Do I use a core or flower nails and how many. I bought a three inch Magic Line pan but I plan to use it as if it was a two inch cake. I will be using baking strips and a convection oven. I have read that I will need about 2 to 2 1/2 times my recipe. Any suggestions?

Personally, I like the flower nails better. Leaves a smaller hole. Can't help you with the rest though. Sorry.

I use the bake even strips and two flower nails in the half sheet pan. Before I started using doctored mixes I needed 3 regular cake mixes to fill the pan so you might possibly need to triple your recipe if using scratch.

I bake my sheet cakes with baking strips and without either a flower nail or a core. Usually, I use a flower nail for cakes 10" or larger, but I have found with sheet cakes that it is not necessary for me to use them. I don't know why, but I have never had a problem doing it this way.

I've used the ML 1/2 sheet cake pans, 3", and I only use the bake even strips. Never had a problem with them. I would use 3x your scratch recipe especially if you are not going to use a filling.

Would using the nails be dependent on how thick or thin the batter is? I think one of the cakes I want to use is going to be Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate Cake because all ages will be there and I want a basic cake. This is for a bowl-athon. I already made gourmet cupcakes for the dinner dance and this is much less formal. I know this cake has a tendency to sink. It did it once for me and I have read others have had the problem. I will change the milk to sour cream, but is this cake going to be ok in that large of a cake?. If not, I can change to a more reliable cake. The other cake will probably be a yellow, and my recipes are fairly sturdy for that flavor.

A hint on the Hershey's recipe....cut the baking powder and baking soda down to 1 tsp each. When I did that my cake stopped sinking

HeyWife, thanks for the tip. It only happened once, but it was a three layer and I could hide it. But I didn't know when it would happen again.

Everyone, thanks for the tips. I usually make 8 and 9 inch layer cakes, so this was a challenge for me. I could have done any configuration, but I thought a half sheet would be the easiest and the least messy in this environment. I am not going to fill it because I don't want it to be too messy or difficult for kids to eat. But... if anyone has a word of advise on fillings in a sheet cake... am I wrong? Is it still easy to handle with a filling in a bowling alley?

I use baking strips, a reduced oven temp, and no nails or cores ever. even for the 14x22 sheet pan that I had.

I usually bake 9" at 325 convection. What temp for the half sheet?