Urgent help needed re large hemisphere cake tin

[Spadequeen]

Am making a golden snitch cake for dd2, bought a large hemisphere cake tin from lakeland but I've had 2 trial runs now and both a disaster.

They said I need a 6 egg recipe, so I've found this but I think I'm having a problem with timings and temperature.

Do you have one of these tins? If so, have you had a successful bake? If so can you please let me have your recipe? Please please please!

For 6 eggs you will need 12 oz of flour, butter and sugar I think, for an all in one sponge. Try covering and wrapping with foil or baking parchment to stop the edges burning. Disclaimer, am no expert!

Thanks fruit. What temp for a hemisphere tin and how long do you reckon?

Could you make the cake in several layers? Do you have just one tin? I'd try a nice shallow cake and make three of them to layer up x

When making a six egg cake you need to reduce the temp and increase the time. It can be tricky. Depending on recipe perhaps reduce temp by 20 or 30 degrees (c) and increase time accordingly. If you get the balance wrong you get a crust that is starting to char but a middle that is still runny. If this happens, encase the entire cake and tin all over in tinfoil and whack the temp right down to 120C for as long as it takes to set in the middle - the foil will stop the outside from burning while the inside cooks.

Btw this is guess work I don't have one of these: though I do want one they look amazing!

Well the first one I made looked brill, just had a whole in the middle. The one I've spent ages doing tonight was bloody raw inside, I didn't think it looked right but I put the skewer in and it came out clean. Should have trusted my instincts.

In my horrible small oven your talking 160 for 50-60 minutes plus, it can take 50 for 4egg 8 inch round tin.

The trick with skewers is not they come out clean. My smooth metal ones come out clean from raw batter.

Hold it up to your cheek. If a metal skewer is really evenly hot after a few moments in the cake it's probably cooked.

If you are looking for raw mixture you need cheap wood skewers the uncooked cake sticks to.

Thank you everyone. Will be off to the shops to buy more eggs, sugar and utter tomorrow! Will let you know ow I get on.

Now how to do the wings.....

Have you tried adjusting your ingredients? I always use a vegan margarine and my cakes come out better for some strange reason than using butter and cows milk

I've got the medium and small ones, I had a lot of trial and error with them before getting it right. The main problems are:

1. They tip easily, I put them on a cereal bowl when filling them, then a crumpet ring on a tray in the oven.

1. Uneven cooking because the middle is so much thicker than the sides. My first attempt had burnt edges and a raw middle. The solution I found (I think thanks to another MNer) was to do half the baking time then pull the shelf out, place a disc of baking parchment (also LAkeland) on top of the cake, I then used the small metal skewers to pin it into the mix so the air currents in the oven didn't blow it off, need to do it as fast as possible without taking it out of the oven, fiddly, but it really made a difference.

I did them at Gas MArk 2 / 150C, medium took an hour, small took half an hour, so large is going to be at least an hour and a half I guess.

Good luck!

Well the first cake is made, used the lakeland recipe. 6 eggs, 375g caster suger, softened butter and self raising flour. 1/2 tsp vanilla essence. 140degrees oven, about an hour, then check and cover with baking paper to help stop the top burning, held i place with skewers to stop it flying off (thanks for that tip!). Then cook for about another half hour. Once cooked I turned the oven off then left in there for about another 5 mins.

No idea what it tastes like but so far it looks ok, hopefully it won't be as dry as hell! I'm sure enough butter icing and fondant icing will solve that!