Baking failure - can anyone help?

[yaela123]

A few weeks ago I made a honey cake which turned out really nice. Tasty, good texture, etc etc.

Last week I tried to make it again as it had been so easy the first time and so delicious. Disaster! I did the exact same thing but this time it sunk a lot in the middle, was pretty much raw in the middle and overcooked and chewy around the edges/top.

But it had been so easy and nice the first time so I thought I must have made a mistake - forgotten an ingredient or oven at the wrong temperature or something.

This morning I tried again. Followed the recipe to the letter, measure everything out super carefully and triple checked oven temp but the same thing happened! I put silver foil over it halfway through baking and left it in longer than it was supposed to be - still uncooked centre and burnt/chewy top.

If the first time had never happened I would have abandoned the recipe but now I am determined to make it work!

Anyone more experienced in baking than me who can help figure out what went wrong?

Is there enough bicarb or baking soda?

Over mixing can sometimes be detrimental too.

Flour well sifted?

Are you separating the mixture into a couple of tins?

If it's a dense mixture, then too much better in one tin means you'll get raw muddle and burnt outside. So is try splitting it into 2 or 3 tins.

Another cause is your oven is on the fritz. Not hitting the correct temp; do you have an oven thermometer?

Sounds like you baked at a temp that was too high.

Or your leavener was too old.

Baker here!

The sunken middle is a classic problem. Sounds like that’s happened because you’ve put too much raising agent in, and probably the oven temperature is a little bit too high. The raising agent will have more of an effect though.

Did you weigh the eggs? Was the oven pre-heated to the right temperature. Were the ingredients exactly the same?

What was the weather like first time ? Ie was kitchen warmer first time ? Could make a difference

I’m guesing you’re using same brand of ingredients eg flour butter amd honey ?

It is annoying when this happens.

The reason is that the excess raising agent causes the top of the cake to rise too quickly, and then the middle isn’t cooked enough to ‘support’ it. It then collapses and the centre remains a gooey mess.

Reduce the raising agent and perhaps knock the temperature down by 10 degrees and see how you get on.

Also. Never ever open the oven door while it’s rising!

Don't open the oven door when it is cooking

Also you may have used self raising flour instead of plain flour - easy mistake to make

It is made with half plain and half self-raising flour, and 1/4 tsp bicarb of soda - pretty sure I put in the right amounts each time and it was only a couple of weeks in between so surely it wouldn't have got too old in such a short amount of time?

Yes I do have (and used) an oven thermometer

It's quite a small amount of mixture so couldn't really split into more tins. I doubt it's relevant but it is in a loaf tin btw.

I’m guesing you’re using same brand of ingredients eg flour butter amd honey ? Possibly a different brand of honey but would that have really made such a difference?

I may be guilty of opening the door though to turn it around - I will be careful not to do that next time

Sounds like too much raising agent and too hot an oven to me.

First aid-cut out the undercooked middle to make a ring and fill the middle with fruit and cream-hey presto pudding. And slice the undercooked bit and dry the slices in a slow oven to make sort of biscotti.

My flour is in jars rather than original packet (moth problem) so there is a slight chance I might have put the wrong thing in the wrong jar

First aid-cut out the undercooked middle to make a ring and fill the middle with fruit and cream-hey presto pudding. And slice the undercooked bit and dry the slices in a slow oven to make sort of biscotti.
That would be a great suggestion but unfortunately it is in a quite-small loaf tin so that won't really work

Are you using the same size tin?

I wonder whether you accidentally cooked it at a lower temperature the first time around. Do you have a fan oven?

I’d try again with the original honey and not opening the oven door

I’ve known different results with different honey in dishes.

Not a fan oven - I will try again at some point (not today!) at a lower temp with new flour and maybe slightly less bicarb

Can't actually remember which the original honey brand was...

Ooh, could really go a piece of cake now.