Cake disaster help required

[GeorginaA]

I never used to this bad at making cakes, admittedly I never made them very often, but what am I doing wrong? Is it a problem with the oven? I know cakes need more "scientific" method of cooking than bung it in and hope but still...

The problem: recipes are consistently taking MUCH longer to cook than stated. Today's cake was a banana cake. Recipe said 180C at 40 mins. At 40 minutes, I put a skewer in and it was still covered in mixture, so I gave it another 10 minutes. After those 10 minutes, tested again and the skewer came out clean, however, gave it another 5 minutes just to be sure. Outside of cake now really dark brown. Take it out of oven - cake has collapsed (obviously mixture in the middle isn't properly cooked ... again)

It's a fan oven, but left it at 180C anyway rather than subtracting 10C like you're supposed to do, simply because I've run into this "undercooked" problem before.

I'm consistently getting this problem with a wide variety of recipes from different recipe books. So I'm guessing I've got to somehow adjust for my oven - but how? And am at risk of giving my family foodpoisoning as if I'm doing a casserole in there I always assume the recipe is long enough!!

have you pre-heated the oven ? I know you're not meant to need to do it with fan ovens but I always do, just in case

Yep, always have it on the speed preheat, then switch to fan mode for a few minutes until the temperature light is out

Maybe use a wider shallower cake tin?

Is it a metal one? I have had bad results with a pyrex one

I think you can get a thermometer to go in the oven (from lakeland or somewhere?)

Could the thermostat be dodgy ? I used to have more problems with fan oven than gas for baking.

Metal loaf cake tin (as required in the recipe) with a Lakeland cake tin liner . Have had problems with cakes in a round cake tin too though. Will look out for an oven thermometer though - maybe it's just not running at the temp it says it is

Do you think it's worth trying to use the "conventional oven" setting of the oven rather than the "fan" oven for cake baking? Is that going to work better?

Try this, cause my fan over was giving me similar probs, oh how I wish I had gas again!
and my mum dug out these temp conversions from Gas to Fan, which differ from normal elec usually by a bit!!!

Gas 4 - Fan 150
Gas 5 - 175
Gas 6 - 200
Gas 7 - 220

Give it a go, might work, did with mine?!

but it's a brand new oven isn't it ?!

Yep NdP - was installed in February - AEG as well, so not a cheap one.

Frizbe - with that guideline it should have been even cooler

GeorginaA I think it is the oven thermometerhopefully you can get one pretty inexpensive at the kitchen store or a Woolworths (or Lakeland!). You would be surprised what a few degrees will do. I always find baking to be exactyou can't mess with the measurements, not like cooking at all. As soon as the skewer comes out clean when testing from the middle, I always take mine out. As far as the fan goes, I believe you just need to reduce the cooking time by 10% of what it says on the recipe. Good Luck with the next batch after you get a thermometer!

[logs on to Lakeland - any excuse]

Thanks ladies! Hopefully will be enjoying yummy home baked cakes in the NOT too distant future...

Also, another thought. Tend to use a food processor to mix cake ingredients - is this causing an issue too, do you think? I think I've always used a food processor before to make them, but obviously not used identical recipes each time to be certain...

Definitely sounds like a faulty oven to me.

I had this problem and it turned out one of the elements had gone. But because the other was still working, I thought the oven was heating up.

Well that would explain things - our oven runs 70C LOWER than the thermostat switches off at.

For read (WHY does MN have different shortcuts to MSN, lol)

70 lower ?! That's bonkers

Yep, contacting people we bought off now. Thermostat is obviously duff.

I've probably diced with food poisoning every time I cooked in there

Well there goes my theory that AEG are good quality

Give 'em hell, G !

Hmm... it's not as bad now... but the light definitely clicked out 70C lower than the right temperature - so that does indicate the thermostat is dodgy doesn't it?

Hmm.... okay, it seems to be that it's not at the right temperature until a good 15 minutes AFTER the indicator light (saying it's up to temperature) goes out?!!

Well, that's probably why cakes took longer... but does that necessarily mean the oven isn't working properly? confused now

I have no idea !

I would say it is a dodgy oven. Basically the light is meant to go out when your oven is up to temp. NOT 15 mins later. I would defineatly call up and complain. Just one question though, what happens afetr 15 mins, when the oven is up to temp, does it then stay at that temp? or go hotter (might explain why cake was nearly burnt)

I know I never reduce the temp for my oven (and I have a fan oven) but I rarely remember to pre-heat. If I do, I just check a bit more often.

Well, I only used it for a little while (making shortbread today), but it did appear to get to temperature and stay at temperature (according to the oven thermometer anyway).

Shortbread wasn't great though either, maybe my baking just sucks