This creates a one-inch border around the cake that, when slid into a box, protects the lovely decorated cake sides from damage. What to look for? A board that is two inches bigger than your cake. You can buy cheap cardboard ones or thicker, decorated ones depending on your usage I actually buy extras because they’re useful to have around. Sure, you can cut your own from cardboard and, lo, I have done that many times when I forgot to buy one or grabbed the wrong size but if you have any kind of baking supply store near you (New Yorkers, check out New York Cake Supply on 22nd Street) they probably sell them for a quarter a pop. Cake boards: Cake boards are awesome - there is no easier way to transfer a cake from a box to a platter to the fridge to wherever you need to take it. Or you could just use the same knife to trim the sides.Ĥ. Inevitably, even when you stack two cake layers from the same recipe baked in the same pan, their edges will not perfectly meet and any place they do not meet, you’re stuck spackling them smooth with frosting. Oh, I know some people use a level but for me, that’s one step beyond my level of insanity I eyeball it instead. It is the very best serrated knife I have ever used in my entire life, and for a good knife, downright cheap.) and start trimming. Dick - oh lawsy, the Google searches I’ll get for that - when Torrie brought it over last summer and I had to buy my own. This is when you bust out the longest serrated knife you own (I fell in love with this 12-inch F. Leveling: So you’ve done everything in your power to get nice even layers but guess what? You’re baking, not building a cake out of styrofoam blocks (in case you’ve ever wondered why your cakes never look like those in the wedding magazines, I have now gleefully blown their cover) and there will be uneveness. Simply bake the cake at a lower temperature (usually 300 instead of 350) for a longer period of time - that’s it!ģ. The second way to get your cakes to bake more level is the gadget-free way, and an old baker’s secret, but I would say that the results are a leetle less flat, yet still impressive. I’ll spare you the science behind it (like I get it, anyway) but they really are magical and your cake layers come out evenly. The first is through Evenbake Cake Strips which are meshy metallic fabric strips that you dampen and pin around the outside of a cake pan before you put it into the oven. We’ll talk about leveling your cake next, but the best way to have less to level (and less scraps to “nom” on, because oh, you will, and then have no room for a real slice) is to bake them more evenly from the get-go. A flat-bottomed cake layer on top of a rounded cake dome will inevitable crack, and I will inevitably throw a temper tantrum over that. Baking even layers: If you’re going to stack one cake layer on top of another, you want the surfaces to be flat. Once frozen, you can use it right away, or wrap it tightly in plastic until you need it again.Ģ. I pop a single layer in the freezer either on a parchment- or waxed paper- lined tray or even still right on the cooling rack, make sure it isn’t touching a thing and freeze it until it’s solid - about 30 minutes to an hour.
How do you freeze a cake layer? I use the flash-freezing approach.
Cakes are much easier to work with when frozen - from lifting layers to stack them, leveling the layers and even setting some frostings. I am clearly a little obsessed with the freezer when working with cakes and that’s for good reason: The freezer is your friend. Why I am obsessed with the freezer: If you’ve read a few of my Celebration Cakes posts already, you’ve probably heard me mention the freezer, one, twice or possibly 32 times.
I get a lot of email about them, people asking about the logistics of putting them together and I realize I’ve absorbed a lot of advice over the last fifteen or so, and I’m overdue to sum it up in one neat place. (But you’ll see the recipe later, you know, just in case you ever want to make your own 12-inch square insanely chocolaty cake.) I am long overdue to share with you many of my favorite layer cake tips. I hope to have leveraged enough cake-baking karma by then to not even have to ask.īut this isn’t about my father-in-law’s birthday cake, or not entirely. A bakery cake! Promise me if I make it to 60, I get a homemade cake too. My father-in-law, youthful guy that he is, turned 60 this past weekend and if you think I was going to allow my in-laws to purchase him a cake from a bakery, oh, you don’t know how even typing those words caused the shudder to rise up in my chest.
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