Wilton Easy Layers Cake Decorating

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Top reviews from the United States

Reviewed in the United States on November 25, 2017

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I had no problems using this. Pretty easy to turn them over and tap the bottoms to make the layers come away from the pans once cool. I used regular cooking spray, not even the floured kind.

It was even easier to level the tops of each layer than with traditional cake pans as the pan itself makes a great guide, since they are so short. With a traditional pan, you'd have to turn the layer out and use the toothpick method or one of the wire cutters or something. This was so easy, use any long serrated knife in your kitchen.

Definitely use a digital scale and weigh your cake ingredients as they go into your mixing bowl and then divided by 5 and put approximately that much in each pan. Allow yourself a little wiggle room for waste. For example, according to my measurements I should have gotten about 178 grams in each pan but deliberately only tried to put 175 into each pan. because inevitably something gets stuck to the mixing bowl or spatula or whatever., you're not getting EVERY gram out so give yourself a tiny bit of wiggle room.

I almost ran out of frosting so I definitely should have doubled the recipe to accommodate the extra filling between layers as other reviewers suggested.

Somewhere between 18 and 20 minutes at 300 to 325 at most. I would reduce the usual cooking temperature so that the cake doesn't rise too fast. This decreases the size of the dome and you won't have to cut as much away. I did that and it worked for me for a cake that was usually 350.

After trimming I ended up with one cup (I know this because that is the size of the storage container that I put the waste in for use later, you can dry it out on the counter or in the cooling oven and then crumb it in your food processor to use it to decorate this, or another cake) full of cake trimming, so, not too much waste.

I used a regular sized decorative paper straw right down the middle to keep all the layers from sliding. Bubble tea straws which usually work for most cakes but tin this case they are so big that I thought they would take too big of a scoop out of this cake.

If you are too rushed to make your own cake recipe from scratch and you are going to use boxed mix, notice that in some of the pictures some people have really perfect looking cakes with a really tight crumb and other people have these kind of light puffy airy cakes that are harder to frost and also rise a lot and look sort of like a wide spongy cake? You can still cheat and use boxed mix, but make it stay flatter with a tighter moist crumb by using full-fat ingredients. If the recipe calls for water, use full fat milk or cream or even sour cream or yogurt. If it says 3 eggs, do two eggs and two yolks or just add an extra yolk. Use oil, not butter. Butter is 20% water. Coconut oil has a lovely neutral flavor for desserts. Personally, I add an egg yolk and use alcohol, usually half vodka and half either Amaretto or Kahlua and I always add a tablespoon of coffee powder to any chocolate cake, you won't taste the coffee, but it will add depth. I always use coconut oil. I find that just doing that will do the trick even with box mix if I make sure the baking temperature is a little low to minimize rise. I usually don't get to use full fat dairy products as someone in my household is dairy-free.

This was really easy and I'm absolutely going to get the larger 8 inch version, so much simpler than previous methods of layer trimming!

I also bought the 8in cardboard cake circles and there was room for some decorative items at the bottom. I also needed to be able to transport this cake and it is unusually tall - the only (affordable) cake carrier I could find that was tall enough to accommodate this cake for travel was the "Better Homes and Gardens Clear cake carrier" which I got for around $13 at wmt. The dimensions for that carrier were
13.00L x 13.00 W x 9.72H Inches and it also had a cupcake layer so that you could carry two levels of cupcakes.

Again, because of the unusual height of this cake, and because I can't be bothered to work too hard at this - I got the Wilton Decorate Smart 3-Piece Icing Comb Set on Amazon for under $5 (wait for sales). At 9" tall, these combs were the only ones I could find that were tall enough and wouldn't require me to try to match up lines using a shorter icing comb!

Hope those tips help others!

Reviewed in the United States on July 19, 2018

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Great little pans. Just a word of advice... Do not attempt to use a regular amount of cake batter between these pans. Don't get all smarty pants like me and measure the entire batter and divide it by 5. It won't work. I should have known better, but hey, sometimes brain farts just happen. Basically, what I'm saying is, don't fill up the pans all the way to the top. I know to most bakers, novice and pro alike, that sounds like a "no, duh!" concept, but I figured I'd share my embarrassment to keep someone else from getting cake batter all over the bottom of their oven. Fill them maybe 1/3 of the way. There's a specific gram amount that works, but alas I can no longer remember it. It does come with a great little book of recipes that I didn't bother to look at since the cake I was making was not in the booklet... Read it. It will give you an idea on ratio of batter to pan. :)

Reviewed in the United States on February 15, 2019

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Do not waste your time with these. Rather than having a bottom like every other round cake pan in the universe, with clear edges so that you can stack it, these monstrosities (sp?) are rounded at the edges. And because they're small, it is nigh impossible to let the weight of the cake take the cakes cleanly out of the pan. And if that doesn't faze you, grab a ruler and see how big six inches really is. These pans are tiny, and the picture on the front of the box is very misleading - these pans are too shallow to create a layer as thick as the ones in the picture. You know how in advertisements they use mashed potatoes rather than actual ice cream, because it looks better that way? That's basically what they did here. I am positive that the cake in that picture was not made with these pans. Seriously, don't waste your time.

Reviewed in the United States on October 6, 2015

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I used this pan set to make a rainbow cake for my twins first birthday and we all loved how it turned out! Other than the extra frosting for the layers, this set made it very easy, had a big impact, and was easy to clean. The pans seem small at first, but once you add the frosting and begin layering, it's the perfect size. With the extra frosting, you can serve smaller pieces to the same satisfaction as a larger cake. I used my own recipe, which fit perfectly at about 1 cup of batter per pan. To fill layers and frost the outside, I doubled my frosting recipe. It didn't give directions or suggestions for coloring batter, but I mixed mine directly in the pan and baked for about 18 minutes with success. Gel coloring made the most vibrant layers. To have a nice flat topped cake, I left each layer in the pans, skimmed off any dome in the cake with a bread knife using the edge of the pan as my guide and flipped the top most layer upside down before frosting. Can't wait to try new combinations and recipes with this set!

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Top reviews from other countries

5.0 out of 5 stars Great cake tins

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 26, 2018

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These tins are great for making a children's rainbow cake I did an extra layer they came out really well. I made 2 for my twin girls birthdays they went down a treat.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant pans

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 16, 2019

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Brilliant set of pans. I was worried after reading all of the reviews but produced a fantastic rainbow cake with no problems at all. Here is the simple recipe I used weigh your eggs in their shells (I used 7 medium just over 400g), weigh same amount of butter, caster sugar and self raising flour. Cream sugar and butter first then add eggs one by one before flour. I had no baking parchment but buttered and floured pans and cakes came out easily.

Size is small but given height of final cake you don't want big slices.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant :)

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 30, 2018

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I loved using these, they are so easy to use and clean. I haven't used the recipes in the leaflet yet but I'm looking forward to trying them out. I made a 5 layer chocolate cake and it was fantastic for a first attempt.
I was so pleased with these that I have just got the 8inch set aswell

5.0 out of 5 stars Love these pans.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 23, 2018

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Love this product. Yes the tins may be smaller than you expect and they are shallow and they do cook quickly. But they stack up to make quite a tall cake. The design of the tins means you can put in and lift out of the oven without messing up your cake mix. There is a recipe in the box but I found a Victoria sponge recipe which did the job. Also the recipe inside says to spray the tins with oil but i found the cakes still stuck a little bit so would advise a small circle of baking parchment. The picture is my first attempt with the tins. Who doesn't love a rainbow cake?

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1.0 out of 5 stars Misleading- very small, and expensive

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 3, 2020

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I absolutely hate to leave a negative review for a product, but I felt like I unfortunately had no choice in this instance- because I hate the idea of anyone making the same mistake I did, in purchasing this item based on what I believe is misleading advertising. When I opened the box, I actually let out a giggle, as the trays are comically small. Quite literally, they can be no more than 2 cm deep, and are the width of about two small cupcakes. I took a photograph, and they are in fact smaller, buy quite a bit, than my (quite small) hands. The pictures shown suggest rather normal sized trays (at least 6 or so inches wide) and for close to £10 that's what I expected. However, in the description the only indication as to the size of the product is a suggestion of it requiring only ones cake mix'. I could perhaps have paid closer attention to this, however I feel it was very vague indeed. Very sadly, despite the trays seeming of good quality, if you are wanting to make a cake that is of a good enough size to feed more than two or three people (in one sitting) I would highly recommend you look elsewhere. I am just so disappointed, as I was really looking forward to making something special with this item, and will now have to order something more appropriate, which is really sad, and a little frustrating. Especially as I am a student, and have to be careful with how I spend what little money I have.