Flat sponge??

[Macdaddylonglegs]

Today I have made a chocolate rum cake, the recipe is a Mary Berry one from her baking bible. Now it smells and looks good but isn't very tall and I'm wondering if ive done something wrong. I'm supposed to cut it in half to fill and ice but it seems tricky given the depth. The only thing I can think of is that my cake tin was a little deeper than Mary suggested - she wanted 20cm with 4cm deep and I think my tin was 5cm - will that have caused a problem?

Just to add I'm fairly new to baking, I've made a few recipes out of Mary's book and I always get lots of complements on how yummy the cake is but I always think my sponges don't seem to rise that much, no idea if I'm expecting too much or doing something wrong

Just measured cake tin and it was actually 7cm deep

Hmm it looks like it's baked ok so you obv didn't forget any ingredients... Was your tin definitely 20cm? I've never found depth of tin to affect the rise, I use a variety of depths of tin at a time and get the same depth of cake.
I do find I have to multiply some recipes by half or double a recipe in order to get a satisfying size cake. I think some recipe books are stingy so it doesn't look like you need an overwhelming amount of ingredients!

Tin too big. You need to scale up the recipe.

Chocolate rum cake sounds delicious - I'm looking that recipe up now! If your cakes don't rise as much as you'd like then could be too much or too little baking powder. Try making sure your eggs are room temp and well beaten. Butter should be at room temp, or not fridge cold anyway. And when you've mixed the batter, get it in the oven as quick as you can. If they taste good that's the main thing though!

Thanks everyone! So I had another go, as the cake is for a family party so I decided I would sandwich 2 together. It rose slightly higher this time and I think thats because I beat the egg yolks and sugar mixture for longer as only real difference in what I did. I have been using cold eggs cardi so will try room temperature next time. poocatcher and bendy when you talk of scaling up the recipe how do you know what oven temperature and duration to use? Is it the same temp but for longer? Or what happens if I use a smaller than advised tin - would you reduce temp and cooking time or just cooking time?

Thanks for all your help!

for a smaller tin I'd keep the same temp but reduce the cooking time, cover with foil part way through if it looks like it's burning (but I cut the tops off anyway so usually ok).
If I do 1.5x a recipe it'll probably need longer cooking time so I just keep checking it til it's done.
I've been doing this for a living for 4 years and it's mainly trial and error haha

But a smaller tin with the same amount of mix will be a deeper cake so may need the original cooking time or longer.

Thanks for your help bendy