Looks like player 2 is only there for quality control and taste testing purposes ;)

I think baking the cakes could still work, whilst you have cooling time you always see people on GBBO fanning the cakes and stuff, or you can bung them in the freezer to cool down too. I think the question around 3 layer specifically is that it may deter people with a smaller oven.

If it was, say, a 9 inch 3 layer cake you'd need a bigger oven to do it all in one batch, so anyone with a smaller oven wouldn't be able to, whereas if you do 2 layer, most people have an oven capable of a 2 layer cake.

I think depending on the specifics (ie, how tall does each cake layer need to be etc) you could probs achieve a 2/3 layer cake, iced in under 30 mins, but a good chunk of that is just going to be waiting for the cakes to bake.

I've been doing that in my runs and they've been verified, you're good