Can I serve this cake?

[wineapotamus]

I offered to make my friends sons birthday cake for his 4th birthday party on Saturday. I have made the chocolate cake in question 3 times before with no problems. This time I took it out after two hours, as per recipe, and as top was very crusty indicating it had been in a bit too long! It dipped in the middle but I thought I'd just stick some extra buttercream in. Anyway, i cut the top off, and the middle bit seems not quite cooked, not raw but more like brownie insides. I've frozen it, but was going to buy a shop one to say sorry and ditch the homemade cake. Now I can't find any chocolate cakes with white icing on ready for her to decorate. Questions are: can I serve the homemade cake? Will I poison legions of 4 year olds? Where can I get a plain non fruit white iced cake? Aargh this is well stressful innit x

If it's over cooked on top and raw inside, I think you might have grilled rather than baked it. If it's got raw-ish eggs in and you are serving to small children I really wouldn't serve it. Sorry!

Chardonnay was the oven on?? Of course you must be right, but OP says it looks raw? Either way I'm very confused by this cake.

I've known recipes like this. You'd be surprised by the baking times of some really dense chocolate cakes. I get a bit twitchy when the recipe says to bake for hours!

I think you'd be best following the advice to make another cake if you have time, op.

Ok thanks all. I confessed to my friend who was very lovely and likes the idea of the smarties in the middle. The cake is to serve 20, and is pretty dense, hence the 2 hours. As I said, I've made it quite a few times and it was always fine. I'm going to have a look at the recipes and see if any of them fit the bill. I'm pretty sure the cooked round the edge bits will be ok, as someone mentioned, egg should be fine in the cooked bits as it was in for a goodly time. What a carry on all this is! Thanks for the advice.

Ps the oven was definitely on, not the grill. It is cooked apart from a small circle in the middle. It was 2 hours at 130 I think X

The easy BBC one I seconded upthread turns out like this. I just finished it an hour or so ago, really simple recipe. The smarties idea also sounds fantastic but I'll take any excuse to post a cake picture.

130?! How the chuff did it get overdone on top then?

If it does it next time, loosely cover the top with foil and/or drop it down a shelf, and give it another 20-30 minutes.

The easy bbc one will get a go tomorrow otherwise it's a supermarket one. What would Paul and Mary say?!

M&S and waitrose both do plain white iced chocolate cakes which are nice. You'd need to check if your local stores stock them though as if you need to order them in it takes a few days.

I had the same problem as you the first time I tried to make a gluten free cake, I scooped out the almost raw batter in the middle and filled it full of buttercream (smarties would be better) it was ok if a bit sweet and I did not poison anyone. The main problem was that like with you the top had looked overdone but the sides looked fine, they weren't, they were overdone and a bit chewy to be honest. I didn't use that recipe again! It was annoying as I'm actually a pretty good baker normally, this cake was not good though!

130?

That can be right.

Yes, my fruit cake recipe goes on at 130, but it also needs a lot longer than two hours and couldn't crust/brown/burn in that time.

I love the idea of a Pinata cake and you have the added bonus of getting to eat the scooped out squidgy bit for your tea.

Do the children have to beat the cake with a stick to release the sweets?

I wouldn't worry about what Paul and Mary would say, they're extremely fussy .

I made a square version of the easy BBC cake and (DS2) decorated it with smarties and aero bubbles for DS2's birthday. It looked and tasted great.

Actually, looking at it. I think they are crispy M&Ms rather than smarties. Still tasted lovely.

That looks really good. You have a lovely shine on your chocolate glaze there, StepAway (Bake off technical term.)

and the tablecloth matches!

Haha. Thanks.

It was only square because I couldn't find the round tins so I used my brownie tins.