Why You Should Cool Cakes Upside Down - Mashed

When baking a cake, aim to avoid a domed top — especially if you're making a layer cake. Piecing those uneven layers together will make for a lopsided mess. If your cake has a dome, no worries; this happens from the batter rising in the oven. You can level it out by using a thin serrated knife to cut slices of the dome off until the cake's height is even (via Wilton Cake Decorating). If you want to MacGyver it, Southern Living recommends using dental floss, a knife, and some toothpicks.

But what if there's a way to have a perfectly flat cake without all the eyeballing and slicing and buttercream spackling? Try cooling your cake upside down.

This technique used to cool angel food cakes and keep them from collapsing also works for regular cakes by flattening out their tops without the need for a knife (via Real Simple). Simply place a baking rack on top of the cake plan and flip. The weight of the cake will fix the dome. Before decorating your perfectly even cake, Martha Stewart recommends letting it cool for several hours, applying a crumb coat (aka a thin first layer of frosting), and chilling the cake again. Even if you're using a boxed mix, these methods will have you baking like pro.

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