Towel to cake strip upcycle

This is the second of two blog posts about what you can do with a towel that is showing wear. In addition to sewing, I also like to bake.  And cake is one of my favorite things to bake. 

If you want your cake to turn out flat you need cake strips. You wet the strips and wrap it around the pan. Then you put the cake in the oven. The evaporation of the water will cool the outside of the pan so that the center of the cake cooks at the same rate as the outside, preventing the cake from doming. 

This is a cake strip that I bought ready-made several years ago. As you can tell it is on its last legs. The heat resistant coating has burned off in places.  These strips were purchased to replace a set of cake strips I had made from an old towel as suggested by a cake decorating instructor.  

 

I used the purchased cake strips for many years, but honestly my old ones made from a towel, worked better. They soaked up more water, the cakes turned out flatter and the strips fit my pans better.

So when one of my hand towels was showing wear, I decided I should make cake strips with it. First I trimmed the edges of the towel. Then, I cut the towel into thirds length wise. The pieces were approximately 4.5 inches high and  24 inches long. I was aiming to make two cake strips. The length of the towel was not quite long enough to use as a cake strip so I took one of the thirds and cut it in half so it was about 4.5 inches high and 24 inches long. 

I pieced together the 4.5 x 24 inch piece with the 4.5 X 12 inch piece. I used an elastic stitch so that I would not have a bulky seam. I went back and forth a few times. I used 100% cotton thread because I did not want melting thread in the oven.

 

Then I folded the towel in half and sewed a zig zag stich near the raw edge.  I also added a zig zag up the middle to help reinforce the towel where it was worn. I do own a serger, but I did not feel like creating three or four cones of all cotton thread, so I used the sewing machine. 

Here is the finished product around the pan, attached together with all metal pins. I don't generally bake cakes for myself and a cake this size would need to be eaten by several people so there is no batter in the pan. I can't wait until I can bake for people again.