When wilton says to use a pound cake in the bear pan.... They mean it! Haha

My cake completely fell apart, and while I was trying to whip up another recipe for it, I burned the 12" square cake in the oven.

Now, I'm up half the night trying to catch up. Lesson learned!

Thanks for the tip, Freedomx4, based on your hard-learned lesson! I hope your extra work was worth it and your cake came out great!

Hmm..I have used a regular cake mix several times in those pans and I have never had any fall apart....If you use 1 pkg of instant pudding it makes the cake dense enough to hold together..

I'd bake it without using the core. The core compromises the structure.

Yeah I tried it once with strawberry mix (for valentines day) and it completely fell apart. Ended up having to make cake balls.