Expert: Elyse Grau - 5/13/2010

Question
Dear Ms. Grau,

I am 67 years old and a very good baker.  I make the best pies, cookies and cakes anyone has ever tasted.  I have an old (about30 years old) Hardwick gas range that gives wonderful, uniform, even heat.  It's so good that I put in a sheet of cookies, time them for 9 minutes and then remove them from the oven without even looking at them because the oven is so perfect, the results are perfect every time.  When short-term things like cookies can be done perfectly with timing alone, you know your oven temperature is perfect.  I absolutely love this stove, but I know it cannot last forever and it's just a matter of time before the oven thermostat breaks down and I will have to buy a new stove.  There are no parts for 30-year-old off-brand stoves.

My best chocolate cake is a three-layer cake baked in 9-inch pans.  All three of the pans fit on one of my oven racks with about an inch between and at least an inch from the inside oven walls.

I expect to need a new stove one of these days and have been shopping.  Today I took three 9-inch layer cake pans to two different appliance stores and tried them in the ovens.  In most ovens (even the so-called "large" 5 cubic feet ovens) the three pans cannot go on the same rack.  I am infuriated with the design of these new ovens.

I have always felt that it was unwise to try to bake cake layers on two different racks in the oven because of the difference in heat between an upper and a lower rack, and also because of air circulation.  I also understand that the best place for a cake to bake is right in the vertical center of the oven, so using two different racks at the same time makes this impossible.  I have experimented with muffin tins--placing two one-dozen tins of muffins on an upper rack and one muffin tin beneath on a lower rack, and the results have been poor.  The lower muffing tin received more heat and scorched the muffins on the bottom (not quite "burnt" but almost.)  So I never bake muffins on two different racks any more, and I cannot imagine cake layers baking uniformly if done on two different racks, either.

My question is this:  if I wanted to make my good three-layer chocolate cake in an oven that could only take two of the pans on one shelf, could I fill all three pans but hold one back and let it stand at room temperature for the approximately 30 minutes that the first two layers would take to bake, and then put the third layer into the oven when the others come out?  I have always thought that whenever baking powder is used, the food should go into the oven INSTANTLY as soon as the batter is mixed.  But could the batter stand in the pan half an hour and then go into the oven?  If that would work, then when I shop for a stove I don't have to worry so much about oven sizes.  I only found two makes of oven that all three pans fit into on one rack:  General Electric and Frigidaire, and both of these stoves get very bad reviews from customers.

I hope you don't mind this silly question.  Actually it's not a silly question to me because it seems to me that three-layer cakes in 9-inch pans are not such an eccentric thing that ovens can't be designed to accommodate the pans.  I love my old stove but I know it can't last forever.

By the way, I also sometimes make three-layer cakes in 10-inch pans, and of course three of those pans don't fit into the oven at the same time, so when I do that, I make enough batter for two pans, put those into the oven, and then make a smaller amount of batter for just the remaining pan.  I go to this trouble so as to ensure that the batter will be freshly made for the third pan.  Of course it means washing everything up and starting all over again with measuring etc.  Maybe I've just been silly about this and could just have made the full amount of batter, divided it among the three pans, baked two of them and then the third one when the first ones are done.  What do you think?

James Zemboy

Answer
James:
I wish I could sample some of your baking! I don't think yours is a silly question. I totally agree with you, it is frustrating how small today's ovens are. I too looked around for the widest I could find, to accommodate my large cookie sheets. (I got a Sears, by the way, which I think is made by GE, and I don't like it).

One thought would be to get a convection oven. The fan circulates the heat evenly and it isn't necessary to rotate pans when using multiple shelves. I'm not sure how they affect the browning of cakes, though.

Otherwise, rather than holding the third layer out, I'd place two on the center rack, and the third on the rack directly below, centering it between the two above it. In my oven, the two center slots are pretty close together - in fact just enough room for a cake to rise. Towards the end of the cooking, when the cakes are set enough that opening the oven won't deflate them, rotate the pans. If that doesn't work, I'd go with your present solution, of making 2/3 of the batter first. It would probably work OK to just let it sit, but the cakes might not be up to your standard and present reputation!

Elyse