No More Cake Hump

Ever have a cake that comes out with a big hump in the middle?  I have the hardest time cutting that hump off to level out the cake, not because of lack of skill, but it is a huge waste of perfectly good cake...Cake abuse!

For a few years now I have been using these nifty little silver strips that you soak in water and wrap around the outside of the cake pan to help the outside stay cooler and let the cake bake evenly.

Well the other day I made a cake that was larger than one of those strips and I really didn't want to have to cut off any cake.  True, no cake is ever actually wasted in my house, everyone comes to eat the discarded cake hump, but still I needed to make a big cake and ever inch mattered.

Since I knew that the cake was cooking faster on the outside than the inside which caused the hump I did a little science experiment.

Thesis:  If I dig a hole in the center of the cake so that there is less cake in the middle to cook, it will all cook evenly and come out level.

Well I tried it, and it WORKED!  Hooray. So I tested it again, and it worked again. Hooray scientific method.  Go ahead and try it.  Just pour your batter into the pan and with a spatula make a little hole (don't go all the way to the bottom) pushing more batter towards the outside all the way around.

The center is not so cute, but it's level!

Try it!

Happy Baking