Cake in air fryer?

[ConfusedByDesign]

Anyone tried any baking in their air fryer? Does it work well?

Watching with interest, mine says you can in the instructions but I've never tried.

I’ve just bought an air fryer. Yes …it bakes cakes. I’ve been playing with it today!
My air fryer is the Ninja Dual Zone 400.
I’m very pleased so far!

@Grandma14 that looks amazing. How long did it take in the air fryer?

Wow that looks fab! Was it a normal recipe?

One was the normal recipe ; Mary Berry’s Victoria Sandwich, but I recalculated it down to 3/4 of all ingredients as the recipe was for an 8inch cake and my tins were 6 inch.
They took the same length of time in the air fryer as a Fan Oven timing. I adjusted the Ninja temperatures to match the recipes.

I bought 2 x 6inch sandwich tins from Amazon and they fit perfectly in the dual drawers.

The chocolate cake was a chocolate Madeira , again scaled down to 3/4. This was cooked in a deeper 6 inch tin. And then layered and covered with chocolate ganache.

I’ve since made a lemon drizzle cake ….and I’ve bought some 8inch x 6 inch foil trays from EBay to make tray bakes.
The good thing is, you can open the drawer and check with a skewer to see if the cakes are cooked, as often as you want after the first , say, 15 minutes, and they don’t seem to sink at all.

My friend has just bought the same model, based purely on my early cake successes!
🍰

Ok, I tried cake baking in the air fryer and it was a disaster. The top of the cake looked amazing but it didn't really rise and was a horrible texture on the bottom.

I'm not sure what I did wrong, I used a silicone cake tin but I've used that I. The normal oven before so I don't think that was the problem.

The only thing I can think of is that I opened it to check after 15 minutes, but I thought it would have finished rising by then 🤷🏻‍♀️

My friend was over today, for her to practice air fryer cake making,
( She’s just bought the same model as me.)

We cooked 2 lemon drizzle tray bakes - one in each drawer at the same time. They were just the same as if they’d been cooked in the big oven, despite us opening and checking numerous times after 15 minutes.

Perhaps it was your silicone pans? I was always told that metal is best conductor of heat for baking cakes, whereas silicone is heat resistant.
Did you put a skewer or testing wire in the cake to see how it was getting along
then testing every 5 minutes until the skewer came out clean?

I used heavy duty foil trays today ( supposed to be disposable, but I’ve washed them to use again as the cakes just slid out cleanly.)
They were about £5 for 25 on eBay, and fit the Ninja drawers exactly .

Don’t give up….have another go!

@Grandma14 I have a ninja XL so very similar to yours. I used the silicone because I didn't want to use a metal cake tin in case it scratched the non-stick interior of the cooking drawer.