The Plate Hack For Perfect Cake Layers Every Time

The beauty of a layered cake is not just in the thick outer coat of frosting creatively decorated with swirls, sprinkles, or even fresh fruits. When you slice into it to reveal the beautiful layers separated by smooth, creamy filling, that's when you can truly appreciate this aesthetically pleasing tiered bake in all its glory. But achieving those perfect layers is no easy feat. The level of accuracy and attention to detail, alongside the skillset and patience required to pull off this kind of perfection is exceptional. However, with a little ingenuity, any baker can create a real masterpiece with relative ease simply by using the plate hack.

Essentially, you use a plate as a guide to cut out circular pieces of cake that you then use to build the layers. To start, bake the cake in a half-sheet pan as opposed to using a round cake pan as is the norm. After cooking, take out the sheet cake from the oven, remove it from the rectangular pan and allow to cool on a cooling rack then refrigerate. Once chilled, place a plate of your desired size upside down on the sheet cake and use a serrated knife to cut all around it following the edge of the plate. Cut out all the circular pieces you can fit from the rectangular sheet cake. With that, you have perfectly equal cakes ready for layering.

Besides helping you create cake layers of perfectly equal sizes, there are plenty of other reasons why the plate hack is so ideal for making tiered cakes. For instance, the fact that you don't need to bake individual cakes in separate round pans means considerably much less hassle turning and moving cakes around in the oven during baking. You only have one large rectangular cake to babysit, which requires just one turn at halftime. 

Furthermore, baking cakes on a sheet pan offers endless options for different sizes and shapes that you can cut out thereby saving you from having to stock up on countless cake pans that will eat up your limited kitchen storage space. Finally, thanks to the plate hack requiring baking a sheet cake, you'll end up with perfectly flat cake layers. 

Sheet cakes generally turn out flat unlike the domed results that are more common when using round cake pans (unless you employ various tricks like wrapping the pan with a damp kitchen towel). So, if you're looking for the easiest way to build an impressive layered cake, look no further than the plate hack.