Cake baking problems!!!!!!?

You can bake it at 325 instead of 350 to help it be a little flatter. The bake-even strips that you can buy at Michaels work well, or so I've heard from lots of people. I know someone who takes a clean kitchen towel and lays it over the dome of the cake as soon as it comes out of the oven, and presses the dome flat. I've never tried that. I use the wilton cake leveler that you can buy at walmart or Michaels for around $3. It works really well. If you have kids, they'll enjoy snacking on the cake trimmings. Otherwise, you can put them all in a bag in the freezer and when you have a fair amount, look for a recipe for cake balls to use up all those cake scraps.

That is pretty common. Most of the time the heat distribution in the oven is uneven. Cake decorators deal with this all the time. They simply take dental floss and "shave" the top of the cake after the cake has cooled. You can even get a special tool at a cake decorating shop to do the same thing. It has a rigid wire. Some experienced cake bakers just use a cake knife to slice off the hump on the top and then flip the cake over to stack it for a double-layer cake.

You can avoid this by either buying cake baking strips that you soak in water first and wrap around the outer part of your cake pan and prevent the outside from cooking so much faster than the inside (which is why your cake "domes")... or... you can take strips of towels soaked in water and do the same thing. Here is a link for the cake baking strips (just to give you an idea of what I'm talking about) http://www.kitchencontraptions.com/archives/006238...

It's normal for a cake to do that. You can carefully slice it off. Also, to hide the fact that you didn't slice it perfectly, cover the top with frosting, whipped cream, or even better some melted chocolate. It is called a ganache. All you do is chop some chocolate up if it's not in chip form. Then pour some heavy cream that has been boiled...always watch and stir the cream over the chocolate. Add a teaspoon or two of vanilla and about a cup of brandy and stir it. it will take some patience for the chocolate to have a glossy look. If you don't have brandy, you can substitute it with rum or something as simple as water or milk.

I've heard that baking cakes in a convection oven prevents the domed top. More even cooking I guess.

This happens when I bake cakes as well!

that's actually normal. prior to frosting a cake that rise is removed either with a bread knife or cake leveaning device.