How to Divide Cake Batter:
An Easy Tip for Even Layers
I have loved to bake cakes for as long as I can remember. For years, however, the task of making a two-layer cake intimidated me. It never seemed like I could get the layers to bake evenly, and my cakes were always lopsided.
A Major Cake Disaster
One summer when I was in high school, we were visiting my grandparents in Pennsylvania. A large gathering of family members were coming to dinner for my grandfather’s birthday. I offered to make the birthday cake, and my grandmother supplied me with a cake mix.
We had been living in Spain, and the only cakes I had ever made were from scratch. By comparison, the cake mix seemed so easy. My cake layers (of course) were horribly uneven, but I decided it was nothing that a lot of icing couldn’t fix!
Using the only chocolate frosting recipe I knew, I made up a batch of frosting and loaded it on, smearing it between and on top of the two layers until the top appeared flat and smooth.
Later that day, to my horror, I realized that one layer had slid nearly off the other, and the whole cake was breaking into pieces. The heavy frosting had been too much for the light and airy cake texture that the cake mix had produced.
