Homemade Fortune Cookie Recipe

Fortune cookies; many times these little cookies are more fun to open and read than they are to eat! With this fun fortune cookie recipe, you will never find yourself just opening the cookie, reading the fortune and leaving the rest.

Half the enjoyment of the fortune cookie will come from chowing down! Read more

Considering a Cake Leveler

When you’re baking a cake and it’s all cooled, you think you’re ready to frost. You’re not. You’re forgetting the very important step of cake leveling. Don’t fret though. I used to not know about the wonders of a cake leveler and when I found out about I couldn’t believe that I had made so many cakes without one!

A cake leveler looks kind of like a miniature saw and has a taunt fishing line or wire instead of a sharp blade (like a saw). Of course, some of the more professional cake levelers have blades, but for the everyday cake, it really isn’t necessary.

With the cake leveler, you can simply drag it over the top of a cake (leveling it with the sides of the pan) and cut off the top of the cake (also called the “hump” or “cake top”). This is a great tool for mulit-layer cakes because if they weren’t level then it would be unstable and lopsided.

For troubleshooting 101, you might find that your cake doesn’t reach the top of the pan, so you can’t cut off the top. Well, for this common problem there are two things you can do. First off, you can remove the cooled cake from the pan and cut it off from there.

Any store bought cake leveler has adjustable notches which allow you to change the height of your cake. Just adjust to whatever the shortest side of your cake is and voila! Level cake!

For next time (if cooking from a box and in a 9 x 13 inch pan) you can double the cake size. In other words, blend two boxes of cake mix and pour it into one 9 x 13 inch pan. It may take a little longer, but your cake will reach the top of the pan, so you can cut off the extra, using the sides of the pan.

I think a cake leveler is a great investment and they’re not all that expensive. The process of cake leveling is extremely important and this is just one of those baking gadgets to make that process easier.

If you don’t have a cake leveler, you can just use regular dental floss. Floss gets the job done just the same, only there is one restriction. Don’t use mint floss…unless you want a mint cake!