Everyone loves the look of a layer cake, especially if you are looking at a towering cake that showcases four or five layers instead of the more common two layer look. Layer cakes aren’t necessarily more difficult to bake than other types of cakes, but they do require a little bit more planning. You usually need more batter, which means that you might need to tinker with your favorite recipe to scale it to produce as many layers as you need. You also might need a few extra cake pans if you want to aim for five layers instead of one or two. Wilton’s Five Layer Cake Pan Set is a set of baking pans that is designed to make baking those towering layer cakes much easier than ever before. The set includes five shallow cake pans – each is just 3/4-inch deep – that are perfect for baking thin, uniform layers of cake. The pans are scaled so that the set only needs one box of cake mix for the whole finished cake. This means that a homemade recipe for an 8 or 9-inch layer cake can also be used in the pans without any scaling required. It sounds simple, but this set manages to streamline the process just enough that you’ll find yourself making multi-layer cakes (and experimenting with effects like ombre and pinata cakes) a lot more often!
The downside to this set is that the cake it bakes is tall, but it is also a bit smaller in diameter than your average cake at just 6-inches across. Fortunately, you get so much cake in each slice due to all those layers, that you’ll still be able to serve at least 8-10 people with your cake when you cut it up to serve it. But if you’re looking for something to compete with the giant layer cakes that you can find at some bakeries, you might have to splurge on a new set of more traditionally sized pans to create them.
 How much batter goes into each pan? I often get asked this question and the answer is “divide your batter equally into the pans.” You can do this using a measuring cup or by weight. Each pan should be filled at least half way for best results. I can’t give an exact amount because every cake recipe is a little bit different and make make slightly different quantities of batter, so keep that in mind as you bake.
How long should the cakes bake? The baking time for every cake recipe will be slightly different, but since these pans are so small and the cake layers are relatively thin, you can check your cakes after about 10 minutes in the oven and go from there.
KAye Arnold
March 18, 2015Getting ready to make the small five layer cake and no instructions on the box how long to bake the layers. I know since it is shallow pans the time and maybe temp tyre must be adjusted. The box pans came in have NO DIRECTIONS!! Please help ASAP.
Nicole
January 12, 2016Hi Kaye, Sorry for the delayed response to your question, but the baking time will vary based upon the type of cake batter that you are using. Some will require more and some will require less, but if your layers are thin, the layers will likely be done baking between 10 and 15 minutes. Check the cake for doneness by lightly touching the top of the cake with a fingertip to see if it springs back, or insert a toothpick into the center of the cake and look to see that it only has a few crumbs attached (no wet batter).