Baking cakes!

[BlackForestHotChocolate]

I cooked two sponges earlier this evening to put together with icing. I’m normally pretty ok at baking cakes but this one is a disaster!! I put it in the oven to cook at the same time as the jacket potatoes. Would this be where it went wrong? Other than that I have a new kitchen aid and used that and I can’t believe that would be the issue would it? Help bakers!

What went wrong? What temp did you bake them at?

Not enough information. What exactly is wrong? Did you bake it with the normal temperatures or changed it due to the jacket potatoes?

I can only say that I make sponge cakes with a handhold mixer, creaming butter first, then sugar and eggs, flour etc, my MIL uses the all-in-one method with the baking blade of a food processor and now with a kitchenaid. Her sponge cakes are dense as hell while mine are fluffy.

It's easy to over mix with a kitchen aid.

Thanks for the replies, cooked at 180, did 8oz flour, 8oz sugar, 8 butter and 4 eggs. Creamed the sugar with the butter, added some flour, then an egg whilst mixing then repeating that until the flour and eggs were used up. I wonder if I got carried away with the magic of my new Christmas present and over mixed it as someone said about! It’s very dense and claggy!

I do that but after the last egg it is hand mixing only for the last half of the flour.

Also put in a hot oven and don't open the oven half way through to faff about with potatoes etc.

Yes, dense and claggy means you overmixed it. Once the flour is in, don't mix it for more than 30 seconds. Kitchen aids did that to my cakes. Sometimes, I fold the flour in by hand....

I'm no Paul Hollywood but probably wouldn't try to bake a cake with other food in the same oven eg potatoes. It could interfere with the heat and moisture situation inside the oven.

That's the recipe I use and I put all the eggs in before the flour, then fold the flour in by hand rather than using the mixer otherwise you get rid of the air.

I’d say the steam from the potatoes, the oven was a bit hot (I’d cook cakes at 160) and potentially over mixing could have all contributed!

what I mean about the heat is that they may have looked cooked as it was quite hot, but inside been a bit under done hence being claggy.

I think you overmixed. I mix the eggs with the sugar and the flour comes late, just to ensure it's properly mixed and ther are no pockets.

Agree with the others, sounds like over mixing and possible the oven being too hot.

I make my sponges using the same measurements, but after I’ve creamed the butter and sugar, I add in the eggs and mix well. Then I fold in the flour by hand and I add in a tsp of baking powder (then a brief mix with the mixer before putting into cake tins). I then cook on 160 (fan oven) for 25 mins ☺️

Over mixed I would say -I can't use kitchen aid type things for cakes because I over mix when I can't feel the mixture via a handheld.

Fold in flour. Never mix it in