Baking - recipe followed to the letter, what am I doing wrong?

[mummoi]

Hi everyone. I'm really at the end of my tether with this one so any advice would be really helpful. I baked a very simple victoria sponge yesterday with my kids. We followed the recipe completely. When the timer sounded I looked into the oven it had risen beautifully and was a lovely brown colour. Took it out, pierced it with a skewer and it came out clean. Left it to cool in the tin, looked 5 mins later and it was flat as a pancake. Cut into it later and it just looked solid & uncooked, and tasted horrible. Same happened last week with an easy bake chocolate cake recipe we tried - both from BBC recipes website. Help please, what am I doing so very wrong???

Mary Berry’s all in one for sure

Wow @BellaVita that is amazing I can only dream of such a result! I'll keep you posted xx

That photo you posted shows a cake that is nowhere near cooked enough in the middle. Low and slow!!

The cake is made of 4 eggs, 8oz stork, 8 sr flour, 8oz caster sugar and 2tsp baking powder.

Bung into your mixer, whizz up and pop into two tins at 180 or fan 160 for around 20/25 mins.

Honestly, @mummoi you cannot go wrong with Mary Berry.

Have you got a gas oven?

I hate it. Every shelf is a completely different temp.

Cakes look cooked and the skewer comes out clean. Then sinks. Bloody hate it. Can't wait to do my kitchen so I can go electric again

Another tip (from Mumsnet possibly) I always make sure my eggs, butter and milk are room temperature before using them.

I've just baked a carrot cake which still needs eating but I now HAVE to try to recreate that masterpiece from Bellavita!!

Luckily I'm due to shop tomorrow woo hoo so won't have to wait long.

We had success! The kids loved it and said it was delicious I weighed my eggs (thanks @PanamaPattie) to get my weights for the other ingredients correct, then creamed the sugar and stork together by hand. I then added the egg gradually and sifted the flour, before folding it in. Then split the mixture between two baking tins before putting them into a preheated oven for almost 30 mins. It was probably a couple of minutes too long with hindsight, but when I took them out they were golden brown and sprung back easily when I tried them. It probably looks a little weird and certainly as amazing as yours @BellaVita, but nobody likes cream in this house. So it was just a jam sponge sprinkled with icing sugar and strawberries Happy family tonight so thank you all again for all your tips. Cheers xxx

Here are the pics!

That looks so yummy @mummoi I bet it was delicious!!!

Looks lovely. Well done!

Looks perfect to me! Well done

Yay! That looks scrummy - and I'm ignoring the advert for gaviscon that has just appeared to the right

Hope it tasted as good as it looks.

I love a happy ending

Brilliant. So much nicer than shop bought cakes too.

You'll be baking every day now OP

Yay @mummoi - your cake looks absolutely gorgeous.

I must admit that I have taken to weighing the tins after putting the mixture in to make sure they are both the same weight 😬 so that they will come out even in height.

That looks delicious @mummoi

Brilliant, well done

I did this too @BellaVita, I was making sure they were the same weight by levelling them out. I certainly didn't think that weighing eggs and then weighing baking tins would make such a difference, but it did! I have to say, I'm itching to bake something else now. I am aware that I may regret that decision