Why Layer Cakes Lean And How To Prevent It From Becoming A Disaster

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The Leaning Tower of Pisa should never be on your cake plate. The chocolate layer cake you made will taste scrumptious, but its dramatic effect will be lessened if your masterpiece looks like it was struck by an earthquake. Leaning layer cakes are a common problem for home bakers, and the reasons why it happens run the gamut from using the wrong cake pan to air pockets between the layers. We wanted a definitive answer to prevent layer-cake disasters and turned to Sandy Folsom, School Director of the Wilton Sweet Studio Cake Decorating & Baking School in Naperville, Illinois. 

"The most common culprit for a leaning layer cake is uneven layers," Folsom told us. "When cakes bake inside a pan, a dome typically forms, which makes [their] surface uneven." So if you stack your layers without leveling them, it's inevitable that your cake will lean. To level and torte a cake, once your cake has cooled, Folsom recommends that you "lightly press the palm of your hand onto the dome, and use a sawing motion with a serrated knife in your other hand to even it out." For the best results, make sure your serrated knife is sharpened, so that you cleanly slice off the dome, which you then slide onto a cake circle. Called "cake scraps" in the Wilton Studio prep kitchen, "they're delicious to snack on or save for later to make cake pops," Folsom said. If you're making a tiered or a wedding cake, she also advises using dowel rods for additional support.

According to Folsom, another reason why your cake is leaning could be how you're frosting it. "If your cake is leaning during the frosting process," she said, "it's most likely become unbalanced when you added the filling between layers." As much as we all love a luscious buttercream or whipped frosting, Folsom advises not going overboard with it. Too much frosting adds weight to the cake, which can seep out and cause the layers to slip, especially if you're making a heavy multi-tiered cake. Another of Folsom's pro tips for frosting a cake is "inverting the top layer of the cake so the part with the cut-off dome is in the center. This provides a flatter surface to decorate on as well."

Everyone can make mistakes when baking a cake, and sometimes, your cake crumbles when you slide it out of the pan. Rather than start from scratch, Folsom offered us a quick fix for frosting a crumbling cake so it has even layers. "Chill your cake before applying a crumb coat and then chill [it] again before adding the final frosting layer." The frosting crumb coat glues the crumbs in place and smooths out the cake's surface so it will be easier to spread the final layer of frosting. As Folsom explained, the twice-chilled cake prevents the layers from shifting while you're scraping the sides of the cake, thus further assuring your cake's stability as you add any decorative touches.