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Hi, I just baked Paul’s choc cake exactly as he instructed on his video (which is fab btw).  The only difference was I used a fan oven at 130 instead of 150 as he suggested, and I used cake strips to stop the cake domeing.  My cakes looked lovely and risen with no dome when I took them out of oven but when I touched them I noticed the top was a rock hard crust and when I cracked it there was a 2 inch gap then the cake.  I’ve never seen this before and I’m baffled to what happened.  Needless to say my cakes are a bit flat (trying to make a 2 tier christening cake for weekend :-().  Any advice as I will have another go this afternoon.

I used a fan oven at 150 as did not know to turn it down to 130 and they turned out okay apart from one of them sinking slightly as the I was tempted to open the oven (I think that was why it sank)

There are several reasons why a cake crusts that way. Over beating the batter can cause this, using granulated sugar instead of caster, having the oven up to high and some times if a tin has been over greased and floured. These are just a few things. I’ve had this happen with madeira, my solution was to put a slightly damp tea towel over the cake while cooling and it solved the problem. The other thing to do is upturn the cakes onto a cooling rack lined with parchment paper leaving the tins on until cool. You could also turn down the temperature, 130c is just a guideline, all ovens vary, just another 5 degrees lower may do the trick.

Thank you for your answers.  I baked the cake again with 99% success.  Again at 130 in fan but took the 6″ out after 1 hour 15 minutes and the 9” out after 1 hour 30 mins.  Still had the crust but the cake had not shrunk underneath and had risen lovely.  Next time, I will try what ‘madeitwithlove’ suggested and lower temp by 5 degrees.  My oven seems to be fierce.