I Am a Professional Cake Decorator and Never Bake Without Cake Strips.
Assembling a cake may seem simple, but it’s much more difficult than it looks. Making the “bones” of a cake strong is just as important as making it look pretty, and domed or upside-down layers can ruin your cake from the start. I’ve been a professional cake decorator for 14 years, and there’s one tool that makes baking cakes so easy that I no longer bake without them: cake strips .
One of the things that used to drive me crazy in commercial kitchens and bakeries is food waste. Some waste is expected, but it can get pretty extreme. When I was a cake decorator, I would cut off pounds of domed cake tops a day to make flat cake layers. As you might imagine, if the layers weren’t flat, the cake wouldn’t be level. Those tops would go straight into the trash.
Cake strips ensure that cakes rise and cook evenly. They reduce unevenness on cakes, meaning you don’t have to cut anything off and throw it away. Cake strips cost about five dollars a piece and can (potentially) last for years, saving you money and putting more cake in your belly.
Why do cakes rise to the top?
If you’ve ever baked a cake, cupcakes, or even cookies, you’ve witnessed the phenomenon of a domed center and browned short edges. This is to be expected. The dough or batter around the edges, in direct contact with the metal cake pan, heats up and cooks first. In the case of a cake, these areas cook and harden before the leavening agent reaches its maximum potential — hence the shorter edges. The center of the cake takes longer to heat up, so the baking powder or baking soda has a chance to fully activate, rising all the way. In most cases, this is not a bad thing — cupcakes come out with beautiful cracks and sharp tops, and cookies come out with soft, chewy centers. However, cakes with a high domed top and shorter edges can complicate things.
Cake Stripes Make Cakes Better
Cake strips are genius in their simplicity. They are long pieces of strong cotton fabric – sometimes they have a shiny metallic finish – and they are layered. On one end, there are two small cotton loops. You use the cake strips by soaking them in water and then wrapping them around the outside of round cake pans, securing one end into the cotton loops on the other end, like a belt. This damp cotton strip essentially seals the edges of the cake pan so they don’t cook as quickly, giving the baking powder enough time to fully activate. The cake batter bakes evenly, cooking in the center at the same rate as the outer edges, resulting in a flat cake.
How to Use Cake Strips
I usually throw the cake strips in a bowl of water in the sink and let them soak while I prepare the cake batter. Once everything is in the pan and the oven is preheated, I squeeze the cake strips (they should be damp, but not dripping everywhere) and wrap them around the cake pans. I take the time to make sure the strip is pushed all the way to the top of the rim. If the cotton touches the oven racks underneath the pan, you may get a little browning on the cotton. (Slight browning is to be expected over time, but rest assured, these cake strips are perfectly safe to use in gas or electric ovens.)
I buy these Wilton brand cake strips for about $5 each (sometimes they come in a two-pack for $10). Wilton is a cake brand I’ve used for years, and I’ve found them to make consistently reliable products. Most cake strips are designed for 9-inch cakes, but there are no rules against stacking cake strips. I always tie two strips together to cover 12-inch cake circles.
While cake strips aren’t efficient for large-scale cake production operations — wrapping hundreds of cake pans would be too much of a waste of time — they are great for home use or small independent bakeries. Yes, I’ve traded in my job in bakeries for writing cooking tips for you, dear friends, but I make wedding cakes and birthday cakes on a small scale. I can honestly say that there isn’t a single cake that goes into my oven without a cake strip around it.