How to Hack a Layered Cake

I’m pretty sure everyone knows an excellent baker, a mean froster and/or a superb cake decorator.

I am so not that person. Sure I love to bake cakes, frost and I can write ‘Happy Birthday’ with gel icing like the best of them, but rarely does it ever look pretty afterwards.

Never in my wildest cake-baking-dreams did I ever think I could make a pretty layered cake. Scratch that- a pretty, thinly, multi-layered cake. I’ve seen those cakes in magazines and in bakeries and have always envied the talent that goes along with years of practice and a steady hand.

 



Enter the Zenker layer-cake slicing kit. This kit comes with a guide, a knife and a cake lifter. So you can easily slice thin, even layers! When I first heard about this kit I was intrigued! When the box arrived at my door, there was a small problem. There wasn’t a pamphlet of instructions and what was written on the outside of the box wasn’t in English… uh-oh. Sure I could have Googled the translation… but that thought didn’t even enter my mind until after (naturally) so I winged it, so to speak.

 



Now from what I gathered you need to make one 10 inch cake. The first recipe I tried was a total bust, so I quickly whipped out two 9 inch cakes. And let’s face it most people make 9 inch cakes, right? So I thought, hey… why not try it out? It totally works.

 



Set the metal ring over one of the cake layers.

 



I used a clamp to keep a better grip on the ring. It does have its own latch, but I needed a more secure hold on mine.

 



With a hand gently holding the top of the cake, slide the cake knife through the bottom two rings and gently slice through the cake. Don’t push it through, let the knife slowly cut through the cake or the cake will tear. You’ll need to pull the knife through one side of the ring and rotate the ring to finish slicing through the cake. Repeat the same step with the next few ring sections until you’ve successfully cut thin cake slices.

 



You can get two to three layers out of a 9 inch cake which is fantastic. However the look I was going for was more of a square cake.  So I discarded the top most layers, and by discard, I mean snacked on.

 



Another great thing about this kit is the cake layer lifter. It’s big enough to slide under a thin cake layer and transport it to the platter where you will be building your cake.

 



Top each layer with your desired filling. Use the cake lifter to slide each delicate layer into place and just keep layering and filling.

 



Honestly it’s as easy as that!

 



Now it’s time to frost and decorate!

 



Overall I’m pretty satisfied with the kit. The knife was perfect in length to slide through the cake and sharp enough that it glided through the cake without much force. Now I just need to master that 10 inch cake recipe!

 



Either way you bake it, you’ll impress everyone with a beautiful multi-layered cake!