I'm making my first large tiered cake for this Saturday. I've read and heard that you have to be careful about the edges getting too done before the middle is baked. what do you do to prevent this problem with out having those outside insulator things on the outside of the pan?
You'll want to bake at a slightly lower temperature, which will increase the time needed. I bake large cakes at 325 instead of 350.
You can also use a metal flower nail in the middle of the pan to help conduct heat to the middle so it bakes more evenly. Just grease the flower nail, and put it flat side down in the middle of the pan before pouring in the batter. When you flip the cake out of the pan, the nail head will be on top, and you can pull it out, leaving just a slight indentation, and a small hole where the spike was.
You can make your own pan strips...we did it for many years before the commercial ones came a long. Use a thick cotton towel...a beach towel is great. Cut a strip about 5-6 inches wide and long enough to wrap around the pan with about 1-2 inches overlap.
Fold the strip into thirds so that its 1.5 to 2 inches wide. Soak the strip in ice water, wring out the excess, wrap it around the pan and secure with a couple of safety pins.
It will make a HUGE difference in the overall level of the cake and prevent over-cooked edges too!
[postimage id="5533" thumb="900"]I always use the Wilton Bake-Even Strips AND metal flower nails on larger cake layers. Makes an enormous difference. I also bake at 325F instead of 350F. It takes longer, but results in a nearly flat cake. As Jeff said above, you can make your own out of an old towel. This is a photo of pan preparation using parchment collars and the flower nail mentioned above.
I use the parchment collars with my red velvet recipe which has a huge amount of rise during baking, then cools back to a perfect 2" height.
[postimage id="5535" thumb="900"]The photo The photos above are a 12" red velvet pan with parchment collars, parchment circle on the bottom of the pan, 3 flower nails, and the Wilton Bake Even Strip before baking. And.....TA DA!!! a fully baked and COOLED 2" high finished cake layer. (The only reason this is a photo of the finished cake layer back in the cleaned/dried pan was because I was illustrating how this recipe pulls away from the pan sides.)
I agree with above, especially lowering the oven temp. I don't bother with parchment around the edges - just run a knife around when finished. A little trick with the flower nails (I use the Ateco heat core nails because they have flat bottoms - nice if you have a chance to get them). Put them in the pan first, then poke through the parchment. Keeps them in place, and when you turn out the cake, super easy to remove because outside the parchment. HTH
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