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Before we even get started piping,
we've got to prepare our canvas, and one
of our favorite canvases is a layer cake.
To prepare a classic layer cake, you
want to make sure you have a nice, even top, which
is called leveling, and nice, even layers,
which is called torting.
There's a few different ways to do this, depending on the tools
that you have and how comfortable you are with making
level cuts with a knife.
You can use a serrated knife on a level surface,
a serrated knife on a turntable, or you can use a cake leveler.
A dome typically forms on the top of the cake
when you bake it, and it's not going to be even.
But you can make a perfectly even surface by leveling it.
This technique will help you ice and stack the layers,
because it's going to be nice and even.
First, I'm going to show you how to level
the cake on a flat surface.
All you need is a serrated knife and a nice, level hand.
I'm starting out with a cooled cake,
and I'm going to place my hand over the top of the dome,
just to make sure that the cake doesn't move around.
I'm going to put my knife right here
at the lowest part of the dome.
So you can see on my cake that the dome isn't
really level from side to side.
It's a little bit higher on this side,
a little bit lower on this side.
But what I'm going to do is look for the lowest
point of the dome, and then I'm going
to go ahead and insert my knife right at that point,
and this is basically going to be my guide.
I'm going to have my hand on the top of the cake,
and I am going to try and keep my knife very level.
I'm going to hold my elbow still here
to try and get a nice level cut all the way through the dome.
I'm taking it very slow.
We don't want to take off very much of the cake,
because the goal is to maintain the height as you
stack your layer cake.
And I believe we got that through.
So now I'm going to just lift up a little dome here,
and I'm going to slide my cake circle under there.
This is a very, very dense cake.
And set this dome aside.
A little cake there.
So don't worry about the leftover cake,
because somebody in the family will probably eat it,
or you can freeze it and make cake pops out of it later.
So it looks like this is just a little bit higher on this side,
so I'm going to try and take off just a little bit more
of this edge of the cake, so it's a bit more level.
I think that looks pretty good.
So now I'm going to show you how to torte the cake on a level
surface.
We're going to be using, for the most part, the same technique,
but when you torte a cake, you're
basically going to be dividing it in half.
You can do this a couple of ways.
You can either, just using your eye, score the halfway mark,
or you could use a plastic ruler if you
want to get it really even.
So I'm going to show you a little trick to creating
a guide around the side of your cake
using toothpicks, which might make this whole process
a little bit simpler.
What I'm going to do is I'm going
to put a toothpick in periodically
all the way around the cake.
It's approximately two and a half inches.
As I start slicing the knife through the cake,
this will help me have a better guide
that my eye can actually pick up.
OK, so using basically the same method
we did when we sliced off the dome,
I'm going to put my hand over the top of the cake
to steady it, and I'm going to work really hard
at keeping this knife level.
And once again, it helps if you keep your elbow pretty
close to your body.
So if you're loose like this, if your elbow is out,
you're more likely to tilt the knife.
So let's give this a try.
Slowly begin cutting through the layer.
About the halfway mark here.
I'm actually kind of turning the cake as I do this,
so that I can see that my knife is in line with the toothpicks.
I'm going to take my other cake circle,
and we want to make sure that this layer does not
crack or split, so I'm just lifting up the layer
with the tip of my knife.
And I'm going to slide the cake board right underneath there,
so that my layer comes off really nice and smoothly.
And it's safe.
It won't break, and then all you have to do
is just set it aside until you're
ready to start stacking your cake.
Now, I'm going to show you how to level and torte
the cake using a turntable, which
is going to be slightly easier, because the turntable is going
to do a lot of the work for you.
You'll be able to smoothly turn this
as you slice the knife through the cake.
Just in case I haven't mentioned it, all of my cakes
are sitting on a cake circle, and that makes it really easy
to transport onto my turntable and from my turntable
to a cake plate or a cake stand.
I'm also using a non-slip mat shelf liner piece here.
I just cut it in a square big enough
to sit on top of the turntable, so
that as I begin turning the cake and slicing through it,
it doesn't move.
Works out really well.
So again, I'm going to be using my serrated knife,
and this time around, I'm going to be turning the turntable
as I slide the knife through, and it's going
to really make it a lot easier.
So I want to start at what I believe is the lowest point.
There's a little bit of a lip on this side of the cake,
and so I think I'm going to try and take off
a little bit of that.
And I'm going to begin sawing through it
and slowly turning the turntable as I go.
Remember, you don't want to take off too much cake,
because we want to maintain the height of our layer cake.
That's what makes layer cake so pretty,
and I think I'm all the way through it.
Just going to lift off the dome here.
So using the turntable was just so much easier.
I mean, you literally saw it was like slicing
through butter here.
I have a little bit of extra I think I'm going to take off.
Just slicing right through it.
I mean, I just held the knife still and turned the turntable,
and it did all the work for me.
So this is all nice and level, and now we're
going to torte it.
I'm going to take it off the turntable
to prepare for the torting, and I'll
put it back on in a minute.
Again, I need to measure the sides to create a nice cutting
guide, and this time, I'm not going to do the toothpicks.
I'm just going to go ahead and score it.
While I'm using a ruler here to create my cutting guide,
I'm also using my eye and trying to do it
at about the halfway mark.
OK, I'm going to go ahead and score it a little bit here just
to start, so that when I put it on the turntable
I will know where to begin.
So my cake is scored, and I'm going to go ahead and put it
back on the turntable, and I'm going to insert the knife right
there on my score line.
So I'm going to be sawing through this layer.
I actually made it all the way through.
Cool.
And once again, I'm going to lift the layer up
with the tip of my knife and just
slide the cake board underneath and set it aside
until we're ready to assemble.
If you're not comfortable using a serrated knife
or if you just can't get a nice, level, even cut,
you're going to want to try to use a cake leveler,
because this is a really great little tool.
So the cake leveler works really great,
because it has notches on the side, and all of the notches
are numbered.
So you can set your cutting blade
at the perfect height for your cake, which
really, really helps.
It also has little feet, which are level with the surface
as you slice through the cake.
Works really perfectly.
Also one other thing to note is that this blade is not sharp.
I can actually just run my finger down it.
It's just a wire.
It's pretty heavy duty, though, so you don't have
to worry about it breaking.
We're going to level and torte this cake
using the cake leveler.
Lucky me, my wire is already set at the appropriate height
for leveling the top of my cake, so I'm
going to show you how to do this.
In a minute, I'll show you how to change it
for the torting purpose.
So as you can see, it's going to slice in right below the dome,
and all you have to do is just move it straight through.
Perfect.
We'll pick up that dome.
I'm getting an awful lot of cake here
for next weekend's cake pops.
And you can see I have a really nice level surface.
So now I'm going to show you how to adjust the cake
leveler for the halfway mark.
The cake leveler actually has numbers and notches
on both sides, and you need to match them up
to get an even cut.
To start, I'm going to line up the wire
to gauge the halfway mark on the side of my cake.
It's actually set at a two right now,
because that's how I leveled the cake,
but I believe it needs to be at a five.
So I'm going to go ahead and adjust the wire,
and I am pressing it up against my body a little bit here
to move the wire.
Pressing it in helps to loosen up the wire a little bit
so that it actually moves smoothly for you.
At a five, and that's perfect.
My cake is going to be nicely cut in half.
I'm using a sawing motion, and actually I
have my hand on the top of the cake just to steady it,
so the cake doesn't move.
And you just saw straight through the cake.
It's perfectly level.
This time, I'm actually going to remove my layer,
so you can see how nice and level it actually is.
Slide it right off onto my cake circle,
and you can see how it's nice and stable.
Don't have to worry about this layer breaking,
and I can just set it aside.
Now that you've seen the three different ways to actually
level and torte a cake--
serrated knife on a level surface,
serrated knife using a turntable,
and then also using the cake leveler--
you can decide which one works best for you.
Now that we're done leveling and torting the cakes,
it's time to put together the layers.
Be sure to watch the video on assembling and filling cakes.
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