The Cake Pan Experiment: How to Easily Achieve a Leveled Cake

We have a confession to make. We don't use baking strips to achieve a leveled cake top, even though we've heard so much about it. We always thought it was a cake myth, and an extra step we'd have to take. Every cake we've made, thus far, has been baked solely in a baking pan, sans strip, resulting in a cake with a domed top. A domed cake top hasn't bothered us much, as we don't mind leveling our cakes with a knife and thoroughly enjoy munching on the cake scraps. :) But for many years, we've read about other bakers using old wet towels (a homemade baking strip of sorts) wrapped around their cake pan to achieve a leveled cake. We thought it was about time to set the record straight and do a little cake pan experiment of our own.

We mixed up our favorite vanilla cake recipe, prepared our cake pans, and filled them with the exact same amount of batter in each pan. We then wrapped one pan in a towel that we wet with cold water, ringing it out just a tad, and the other pan was left as is.

The amazing results:

We were in shock at how amazingly level the cake with the wet towel baked, and may never go back to our original cake baking ways. Turns out that the cold wet towel distributes heat better throughout the baking process, so instead of the edges baking first, the entire cake can bake at the same rate. Word on the street is that the cake will also be moister from this process. So just remember, don't throw out your old towels, they will make your baking life so much easier.