>I'm interested in baking cakes in pans quite a bit
>bigger than the 9" round ones I have now. I'm
>thinking 14" round. I was shopping for them online
>and it noted that above a certain size they recom-
>mend some kind of metal heat transfer cone, I think
>to sit in the middle of the pan and aid even baking
>of the cake. Huh? Is that right? I don't want a
>big darned hole in the middle of my cake! Am I
>confused about what this extra heat thing is and
>what it does? Can I do without it and still get an
>evenly baked cake? Do you need information on how
>high the cake will be? I don't really know, but I
>notice the bigger pans move up to 3" deep, so I
>might be baking something that came out close to
>that height. My oven is generic electric.
>
>Thank you, Michael
>

Well from the description of what I read on those heating cores you're suppose
to stick the thing in the middle of your cake pan and fill both the cake pan
and the inside of the heating core with the cake batter. Imagine sticking an
empty tin can in the middle of your cake pan and filling both the cake pan and
the tin can with cake batter. After the cake is baked you're suppose to remove
the heating core and remove the small portion of cake from inside the heating
core and use that to plug up the hole in your cake.
It sounds stupid to me. Usually when I bake large cakes I just lower the
temperature on the oven and bake the cake more slowly.