Anybody experienced with baking?

[Zom B]

I made a box of cake mix and split it between two rounds. After baking, they didn't fluff up very much, so I have two halves that would make some fairly thin layers (about 1/4 inch). I'm considering a few options for "fixing" this situation:

A) I have another box of cake mix, so I could make those the same way and make a cake with 4 thin layers,

B) I could cut the top off each and put them together and hope nobody notices that their layers are split horizontally down the middle, or

C) Run the finished cakes through a food processor and add the crumbs to the other cake mix. This option sounds most appealing to me, but the wife thinks it will make it gritty. Maybe blending the crumbs with melted butter or something might work?

Any ideas?

[Keld Denar]

What kind of cake? Because adding a whole small can (8 oz I think?) of tomato soup to a batch of chocolate cake mix instead of the eggs makes for a REMARKABLY moist and high rising chocolate cake. I dunno why, and I swear you can't taste the difference, but yea...it works. Well.

If its white cake or yellow cake...I got nothing. Just remember, cooking is an art, but baking is a science. If you screw up the formula, it'll either not work or it'll blow up.

[Zom B]

Chocolate. Specifically, Devil's Food.

[Haruki-kun]

A) I have another box of cake mix, so I could make those the same way and make a cake with 4 thin layers,

This could work. If you don't mind the extra work.

B) I could cut the top off each and put them together and hope nobody notices that their layers are split horizontally down the middle, or

This could work, too. And if you decorate the cake, no one will noice

C) Run the finished cakes through a food processor and add the crumbs to the other cake mix. This option sounds most appealing to me, but the wife thinks it will make it gritty. Maybe blending the crumbs with melted butter or something might work?

This will not work. It just won't, sorry.

[Cyrion]

I'd go with Option 2, but don't cut the top off of the top layer. Put the first layer on your cake plate and cut the top off so that it's reasonably flat. Frost the top only, and then put on the second layer. Frost the top and sides of the whole thing, and voila, one nicley done two layer cake.

As far as explaining why your cakes didn't rise well, if either the cake mix or the eggs were old you could possibly have issues. I suppose it's also possible that when the mix was made at the factory there was a problem with that batch of mix and enough baking soda or baking powder weren't added; not much you can do to fix that.

[THAC0]

Whip up some mousse or something, put it in between the cake layers, frost the whole thing and pretend it was intentional.

Whatever you do, do NOT try option C.

[Tirian]

D) Ignore that your cake is flatter than you'd like and serve it with pride to people who are going to go "Yum, cake!"

D') Do the above except serve the cake with sheepish apologies about what a disaster it is, and have people go "Yum, cake!" and then tell you that they wouldn't even have noticed that something was wrong with the cake if you'd had just shut up about it.

Seriously, the first cake that I ever made from scratch had only partially meted chocolate, the baking soda didn't do its job, my goal of blending granulated sugar into powdered sugar didn't work so the frosting was tangibly crunchy, and to top it off when I put the cake carrier on top of my car when arriving at the party it fell off and landed top-down on the road.

Do you know what that cake tasted like after all that? IT TASTED LIKE CAKE! If you heat up sugar and butter and chocolate to 350 degrees for twenty or thirty minutes, you scientifically cannot make something that is not delicious.

[The_Ditto]

If you heat up sugar and butter and chocolate to 350 degrees for twenty or thirty minutes, you scientifically cannot make something that is not delicious.

Yum, Cake!!!

[golentan]

My advice: Recombine them with frosting or mousse cement into a larger cake. I've got a great, ten minute mousse recipe I can post. Alternately, if they're really thin (say, a quarter inch) some nice buttercream or fruit filling makes for a decent bar dessert.

If you've already ground it up, it's not a loss but it's not going to be cake. The chemical changes have already happened, but you can use it as the basis for a dynamite bread pudding or ice cream.

[Orzel]

Dump frosting between the cake layers. Unless they hate cake or is a food snob, they'll be to cake-crazy to care.

Just frost them, stack them, call it a microcake, and roll your Bluff.

[junglesteve]

{Scrubbed}