What went wrong?

[SixImpossible]

Both cakes are chocolate cakes, same recipe, both made by creaming method. Only difference was that cake left was baked in electric oven, and cake right was baked in gas oven.

What went wrong with cake right?

The one on the right looks a bit burnt to me.

looks like the one on the right is a little overdone...plus the wrinkly middle would suggest that the oven door was opened to check and then it sank a bit

so possibly that oven is cooking a little high for set temperature causing the outside of the cake to cook too quickly when the centre is still not baked.

Overdone is a much nicer way of saying it... sorry!

I baked 4 cakes, 2 in each oven, each pair looks the same. 2 cakes at a time takes about 50-55mins, with the electric oven about 5 mins faster.

Oven door wasn't opened until at least 45mins.

I usually bake all-in-ones, which dome and crack if the oven is too hot. Do creamed cakes also do that, or do they rise on the outside first? Because the poor rise suggests to me that the oven was too cold. Yet when I checked on them after 45mins they already looked burnt overdone.

I have an amazingly rubbish electric oven and if I baked things at the recommended temp and time, they'd look like the cake on the right.
I have to cook things on a cooler temp.
And I've given up trying to bake various things, until I get a decent oven again.

I know that's the opposite with your cake on the right being cooked by gas, but have you checked if the temp is correct in it?

Oven thermometer? Check the temperature?

I've got a good digital meat thermometer. Maybe I can rig it up to test the oven temp. The tricky bit will be setting it to take the temp in the cake-baking zone. Being a gas oven the temp varies throughout the oven - which isn't usually a problem, hence my puzzlement.

Oh for goodness sake! What happened this time?

Exactly the same style of cake, but this time plain, baked in the electric oven at 180C - like yesterday's.

Not overcooked, but sunken in the middle.

Where am I going wrong?

I don't have the time for this! I need cake!

ohhh dear, you are not having much luck!

Personally I do not like loaf tins, I have one quite long shallow one which cooks stuff nicely, but for a standard(ish) sponge I think you need a bigger tin, to give a shallower cake, as the mix is not burly enough to support itself without being over cooked on the outside and still raw on the inside.

ALSO are you adding any raising agent? I never do, other than SRflour...it really exacerbates this sort of rise and slump I find.

Loaf tins...I only use them for gingerbread, banana bread and tea loaves, sturdier cakes iyswim

have you any normal cake tins?

Oh dear...
Try fairy cakes? :o

I've finally succeeded in making the six decent cakes I need, but at the cost of six failures. There is no consistent pattern to the ones that have gone wrong - the recipes are all the same (except for cocoa/plain), the ingredients are all the same, different flavour cakes have gone wrong in both ovens, but have also baked well in both ovens.

The only thing is, the ingredients are all from Lidl. I've not used their self-raising flour before...could it possibly be of very variable quality? In the one bag?

Nope six,nowt wrong with the flour although some swear by certain flours, I made 5 cakes (to sell) this week, I always always use Aldi's s/r flour, never had any problems with their flour of eggs. I use all in one method same as Mary Berry too, gas 3 for big cakes but not sure about loaf cakes.

Maybe it was my technique. I usually do all-in-ones. Maybe I over-beat the mix for some of the cakes. I mixed two batches at a time, and split them between baking trays, and each failure was of a pair.

With the second two you will have over mixed, adding too much air which will have caused the mixture to rise above what it is capable of supporting (so they would have collapsed under their own weight). Best way to avoid that is to whisk up all the ingredients except the flour, then just fold it in without adding too much air.