Kitchen Aid novice, I have just made my first cake using my beautiful new kitchen aid and ...

[tomme]

the whole thing fell apart when it came out of the oven. I don't know whether it is a kitchen aid problem or something else, I have made the recipe before and mixed by hand, it came out ok then. Any ideas gratefully received.

How big was your mix? I find that anything less than 5 egg doesn't do well in the Kitchen Aid. I use it for fruit cakes and big sponge mixes, biscuit and bread dough works really well. They make a rubber attachment thing now (like the paddle but with rubber edges) which makes me think we're not the only ones having 'issues'

A plain sort of sponge, was it? Did you remember the eggs?

I've had a Kitchen Aid mixer for more than 10 years and I often beat just a single egg white with it. I almost always make small batters (3 eggs or less) with it and they turn out well. However, If the dough is very small, some of it will end up on the sides of the bowl and you have to stop the machine and scrape the sides a bit to create a good emulsion.

What were you trying to bake? Sometimes if your sponge is just based on eggs (no baking powder), if you knock the oven door or bump the dough, it just falls like a souffle. But I've made all kinds of sponges, meringues and pavlovas with my KA without problems.

Yes remembered the 2 eggs, no baking powder in recipe and I'm not the gentlest at getting things out of oven, maybe that was it?

Yep, that was it. Doing a cake like that is like dismantling a bomb. You need to be very gentle in your movements while transferring the dough to the pan, the pan to the oven, and remember not to bang the oven door. Checking for doneness done at the wrong stage can also collapse the cake. Keep children out of the kitchen while it is baking, too

I find that I get a nicer, lighter sponge when I use my handmixer instead of my KA. If cake is for special occasion I'll do by hand but otherwise I use KA.