Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A

Hello. I have just followed this recipe for two 6″ round cakes (using the scaling guide (‘Reckoner’ given on this website) but the cake mixture was not as runny as in Paul’s video! I have put the cakes in the oven just 15 mins ago but am worried the cakes will come out dry after 2 hours! Does anyone have any suggestions on how to avoid this and what could’ve gone wrong! I fear I calculated the quantity of the ingredients incorrectly. I used the 10″ square as the starting tin to measure ingredients for the 6″ round and multiplied by 2.

Hi madeitwithlove. Thanks for getting back to me. I think I may have added too much bicarb which I later thought about. I added 1tspn opposed to half and this would explain the quick rise and then the collapse of the cakes.

I baked the cakes at 140 degrees on the middle shelf. My oven is fan assisted. I have baked an 8″ chocolate mud cake from a different recipe (same ingredients except I used full fat milk and white caster sugar instead of buttermilk and golden caster sugar) and that cake came out perfect but I wanted to try Paul’s recipe. I will give this one another go in the week and fingers crossed it will come out fine and this time I will only add half a tspn of bicarb.

Well, I braved it and gave this recipe another go this evening. I added half teaspoon of bicarb this time instead of one teaspoon and the cakes came out perfectly baked with a flat top. I’m very pleased with the results. Thanks for all your answers and suggestions. 🙂

Hiya. When I started doing cakes I was really worried about over cooking them and making them dry too so it took a bit of experimenting with my oven. If you feel the mixture is too runny I add a little milk to thin it out a bit. Also I cover the cake with a sheet of wet baking paper, run it cold under the tap and scrunch it up before unravelling and puttin ontop of the cake. I Put it on top when I can see the top is the colour I want but I know it still has time to cook.

Thanks Katie. It’s been an hour since the ckes have been in the oven I have just looked through the oven door window and the cakes have risen very high above the top of the baking parchment (which is at least an inch above the tin). I will give it another half hour before I place the wet baking paper on top… none of my cakes have ever risen so much. They look almost like giant soufles!

Hi Mandy

Your cakes must be out by now, what’s the verdict? I hope they’re fine. When I bake Paul’s recipe it never looks as runny as in the video so it might be you haven’t done anything wrong. I think if you had insufficient ingredients your cakes wouldn’t have risen so much. Is it possible that you might have mis-calculated the ingredients? To make the batter for 2 x 6″ round cakes from a 10″ sq recipe you need to reduce the quantities by a factor of 0.6. This means that you take each of the listed ingredients and multiply by 0.6 which is a 40% reduction and agrees with the ready reckoner. Fingers crossed! and please let us know how the cakes have turned out. x

Hi madeitwithlove. After 1 hour 30 mins the cakes had collapsed back down. I placed the wet parchment paper on top of both cakes and continued baking them for a further 30 mins. The appearance of the cakes was disappointing. The top of the cakes had a very thick crust and an uneven surface. One side of both cakes had sunk. None of my cakes have ever come out like this before. I decided to cut one of the cakes to taste it and check for consistency and apart from the thick crust, it was absolutely delicious and moist.

I multiplied the ingredients by 0.3 (for one 6″ round) and then doubled the quantity for two 6″ round cakes. Did I get this bit wrong?

Hi Mandy

I’m sorry to hear your news. You calculated correctly by multiplying by 0.3 for one 6″ round. I first thought may be there was too much mixture for the tin size because your cakes rose unusually high. How did you calculate the soda? If there was too much soda, the cake would rise very quickly because it would create a large amount of carbon dioxide bubbles.The structure would not support itself, so the bubbles pop and cake collapses.
The right amount of rising agent for your cake batter should be half a teaspoon for the whole mixture (that’s quarter tsp per tin). Eggs should be 3.6 eggs large rounded to 4 for the total batter. You didn’t say what temp you baked at or whether your oven is fan or normal. I bake at 135c fan and use the shelf one rung below the middle, but that’s because I have a most peculiar oven and I find that is the correct position for this recipe. I don’t cover the top of the cake or lag the outside but I do double line with parchment paper which stands a good 2″ above the rim of the tin. The recipe also asks not to open the oven door for the bake duration as the recipe does have a tendency to collapse if the oven temperature drops. I have other chocolate cake recipes which do the same.
I know some members have had issues with the recipe, however, most have been resolved because they realised some parts of the recipe hadn’t been followed accurately. If you try the recipe again, adding a whisked egg white to stiff peak can help. The crusting which formed on your cakes is normal for the recipe,it softens once the cake cools and is due to the high quantity of sugar used. I know it’s not much consolation to you but there is a lot of member feed back on the recipe and some comments in this blog http://www.cakeflix.com/blog/baking-the-perfect-cake-why-things-go-wrong, and which may be helpful.

Thank you Mandy for feeding back on cake post mortem, I’m just sorry you’ve been disappointed this time. On the other hand pleased that you will attempt it again. I’m also going to bake it up again to see whether a few tweeks will make a difference, although I’m very happy how it bakes up for me, despite my very wonky oven!
I’m sure you’ve read the many comments from other members, but in case you haven’t, there is a lot of good advice and experiences there. It will be good to hear how you get on with the next bake. Best wishes x

I am so please for you Mandy! You deserve this successful outcome. Your feed back will be so helpful to other members, thank you so much for taking the time to post your fresh results. xx