Flat Top Cakes

I hate levelling cakes. I think I've done it a total of ONE time and quickly looked for alternatives. Levelling a cake is something you should do if it bakes up domed. Which, let's be honest here, almost every single cake does. A domed cake looks something like this:

Delicious as it may be, it could be more aesthetically pleasing. Not to mention the uneven distribution of frosting! Those poor middle sections.

When my sister-in-law recently asked me how I managed to get my cakes so flat right out of the oven, I figured others might have the same question, hence this blog post.

It's not easy to stack a domed cake, so it should be levelled out prior to doing so. To level a cake, you either get a huge frikken cake knife (which I bought specifically for this job and used ONCE) and go at it hoping you can cut off the dome evenly.

Or you can buy a cake leveler which does the job marginally better. Either option leaves you with a crap ton of cake crumbs all over everything. This also means wasted cake, and boo to that. Ok, I know you can always eat the scraps, but STILL.

A much better alternative is to not have to level the cake at all by having it come out perfectly flat and stackable. I have a couple of tricks I use to make this happen. They work for me every time!

Now, before we even get to level cakes, you want to make sure that your layers are the same height. You can eyeball this in your pans, or you can be anal (like me) and actually weigh the pans to ensure an even distribution of batter.

I fully embrace my craziness.

Now that we have that out of the way... onto level cakes!

FIRST UP: Bake Even Strips

This is my go-to method. All you have to do is dampen them and wrap them around the bottom of your cake pans. The moisture keeps the sides of the pan cooler so your cake bakes up more evenly.

Here's a side-by-side shot of the cakes right out of the oven, only one using a bake even strip.

You can see how nice and flat the cake on the right is. Not only is the one in the left domed, it's also quite a bit darker on the top and sides.

The one on the right is cooked more evenly throughout. I use these strips on all of my cakes and they help a LOT. If you only do one thing, use these strips!

I have the Wilton brand strips that I got at Michael's years ago. These are ok, but pinning them on kinda sucks. I found these Regency brand ones online that have velcro which seems like a much better option so if you're in the market for some, I would get those! You can also create your own by cutting up an old towel into strips and pinning them on.

SECOND: Tea Towel Trick

If the cakes are still a tiny bit domed after using the bake even strips, there's another thing you can do as soon as they come out of the oven. Grab a (clean) tea towel and lightly press down on any domes. Be careful, as the pans will be hot and there will be steam coming out as you press down on the cakes. Don't press too hard or your cake will cave in!

Since I always use the Bake Even strips, my domes are never really that high to begin with, but the tea towel technique helps with that last little bit. I don't know how well it would work on a cake with a large dome. By the time I was done taking pictures, the domed cake was starting to cool, so pressing down on it didn't help too much.

That's it! Two simple ways to get perfectly flat cakes every time!