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asked November 29th 2015

Polka dog handbag cake

Hi, I’ve just made the 10″ chocolate cake to make the polka dot handbag cake. In the tutorial for the cake recipe Paul use the mixture to make both a 10″ and 6″ cake – so is the 10″ cake used for the polka dot cake also made by not using ALL the cake mixture (does that make sense??). I made the recipe up as per the tutorial one here but I only made the one 10″ cake rather than also making a smaller one. My cake rose unevenly and when its trimmed back I’ve now got a cake which is only about 2″ ins deep whereas Paul’s cake looks deeper. I;m confident my oven temperature was fine. It’s an expensive cake mix to have cut quite so much off to get a workable shape.

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Hi, I’ve just made the 10″ chocolate cake to make the polka dot handbag cake. In the tutorial for the cake recipe Paul use the mixture to make both a 10″ and 6″ cake – so is the 10″ cake used for the polka dot cake also made by not using ALL the cake mixture (does that make sense??). I made the recipe up as per the tutorial one here but I only made the one 10″ cake rather than also making a smaller one. My cake rose unevenly and when its trimmed back I’ve now got a cake which is only about 2″ ins deep whereas Paul’s cake looks deeper. I;m confident my oven temperature was fine. It’s an expensive cake mix to have cut quite so much off to get a workable shape.

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Hi hep275

I should think the two cakes were baked off together and only the 10″ has been used for this tutorial. Paul freezes his cakes for future projects so I expect the smaller cake was frozen down.

It is a common problem with high ratio recipes to either sink or bake slightly unevenly and produce a sugary crust which needs removing. It’s the amount of sugar which causes this to happen. There is a very brief explanation in my blog on how sugar and other factors affect baking here:

Baking Problems and Solutions by madeitwithlove


I’m not sure why your cake has not risen better. I can only guess that there was too much batter in the one tin and a heat adjustment for the first 15 – 20 minutes may have given a better result. Please see information in the above blog.
I agree, it is an expensive recipe but one worth enduring with as it makes such a lovely tasting cake. Some members have adjusted the sugar to get different results. To see the comments please take a peek here:

‘Paul’s moist chocolate cake’ My feed back


There are several pages of hints and tips, (particularly in the later comments) which you may find useful if you bake this recipe again. At the moment page numbering is in between my feedback and the start of the replies and comments and not at the bottom. Hopefully this will be remedied.

There is a similar, donated, long shelf life chocolate cake recipe in my blog here:

How to Make Chocolate Mud Cake


Comments for this recipe appear below the blog.

For both recipes use good heavy duty cake tins. I also use two or three ateco heating cores to distribute the heat through the batter.
See the product here: http://www.thecakedecoratingcompany.co.uk/heating-cores-set-of-4-by-ateco
or google it by name to see other suppliers.

I hope you find some of the above inofrmation useful. Good luck with your cake!

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Thank you. I agree it does make a lovely cake, very most. I wont give up with it just yet but will tinker with the sugar quantity. New to this site so finding my way around the Q&A – havent yet figured out what the votes are for either!!

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The votes are for question and answers which may be helpful or interesting. Anyone can vote or be given votes.
Votes can also be given for helpful feedback or for hints and tips. Sharing on the site is so important because we are all learning from one another. Please do look through Q & A and also the blog section for a great deal of very useful information. It won’t take you long to get accustomed to searching the site.
I hope you’re enjoying finding you way around and will post frequently on this section!
Welcome to the site xx

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