Okay, by no means am I a professional, but I have been baking an average of one cake a week for a few month. Today, I made a German Chocolate Cake for my dad's birthday. Well, of course the batter is to much for just two pans, so, I used three. Well, I have a small oven and can only fit 2 pans on a shelf. I put 2 on the top shelf and one in the middle on the bottom shelf. ( I am pretty sure one of the chef on the food network explained this process to me.)

Anyway, when the cakes were done, the 2 on the top shelf didn't rise up evenly. They rose up on the side that was in the middle of the oven. (Try leveling that mess w/o a cake leveler.)

Other than baking 2 layers first and then the 3rd, is there anyway to prevent this from happening?

Well, I am off to clean my messy kitchen. Thanks for any advice.

You could rotate them when they are cooking. Also invest in a leveler if you are doing any amount of cakes, the small wilton leveler works well for the price, its only around $3 or $4. I will level a cake up to a 10 in round i think.

You should rotate them top to bottom and side to side. When they're baking, the ones on top will take longer to cook through. The LR corner of my oven is cooler than RF, so I always set my timer to bake halfway, then switch. It's even more important when you're using 2 racks. The top rack won't get enough bottom heat, and the bottom rack won't get enough on top.

Ali