American🍰 Sweets & drinks

How to Bake Flat Cake Layers

Name: How to Bake Flat Cake Layers
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: ~2 cups Cake batter (e.g. vanilla cake); ~1 tbsp Baking spray or butter; ~2 tbsp Flour; ~2 Parchment paper; ~2 strips Aluminum foil; ~1 Kitchen towel; ~2 Fabric or store-bought cake strips

Learn how to use cake strips (store-bought or homemade) to bake perfectly flat cake layers with no doming, so your layer cakes stack evenly and you waste less cake trimming domes off.

Adapted from a video by Preppy Kitchen

Watch on YouTube

Ingredients

Cake batter (e.g. vanilla cake)Use your favorite cake recipe's batter~2 cupsest.
Baking spray or butterFor greasing the cake pans~1 tbspest.
FlourFor flouring the pans~2 tbspest.
Parchment paperCut into a round to line the bottom of the pan~2est.
Aluminum foilFor making homemade cake strips~2 stripsest.
Kitchen towelWrapped inside the foil to hold water for the homemade cake strip~1est.
Fabric or store-bought cake stripsWrapped around the outside of the pan to help the cake bake flat~2est.

Steps

▶ Tap a timecode to jump to roughly that moment in the video.

1
Understand the problem: the metal pan's edges heat up faster than the center, so the outer cake sets early while the center keeps rising, creating a domed, dry, crusty top. Cake strips insulate and cool the pan's edges so the cake bakes and rises evenly.
2
If using store-bought fabric cake strips, soak them in water for 5 minutes or run them under water, wring out the excess so they're damp but not dripping, then wrap them around the outside of your cake pans.
3
To make a homemade version, cut a strip of foil about 4–6 inches longer than your pan's circumference, then cut it in half lengthwise to make two strips.
4
Fold a kitchen towel lengthwise twice, wet it and wring out the excess so it's damp, place it in the center of the foil strip, trim off any excess, then fold the foil over twice to enclose the towel.
5
Wrap the homemade or store-bought strip snugly around the outside of the pan and fold the ends to secure it in place.
6
Prep your pans by greasing with baking spray or butter and flour, then line the bottom with a round of parchment paper to guarantee the cake releases cleanly.
7
Mix your chosen cake batter (such as vanilla cake) only until streaks of flour remain, then scrape down the bowl and finish mixing by hand until smooth — avoid overmixing, which can cause the cake to sink into a gummy texture as it cools.
8
Divide the batter evenly among the prepared pans (if weighing each pan for accuracy, remove the cake strips first since their water content varies in weight, then put the strips back on).
9
Bake according to your recipe's temperature, but note that using cake strips usually adds a few extra minutes to the bake time since the edges stay cooler. Test doneness with a skewer inserted in the center coming out clean, or by gently pressing the top to see it spring back.
10
Once cooled, the layers baked with cake strips will be flat, pale, and perfect for stacking, while layers baked without strips will be domed with drier, tougher edges and less stable for layering.
11
If your layers still come out domed, use a serrated knife or cake leveler to trim the tops flat for easier, more stable stacking.

How to Bake Flat Cake Layers

Ingredients

Steps

More like this