victoria sponge cake - help

[pmtmonster]

Made one using Nigella's recipe and it was gorgeous but looked like shite. Both layers were very sunken in the middle and much higher round the sides.

Now I didn't open the oven once mid-bake, so what went wrong?

I am in Germany so no SR flour but I thought I had added the right amount of baking powder (3tsp) to the 225g plain flour to make it work alright.

Any tips please?

I thought it was 3g of baking powder, 100g plain flour and 1g salt should make sr flour.

Hmmm that's interesting. I went by the back of the tub of baking powder (Supercook) which says 3 tsp per 225g plain flour for sponge cake. I did wonder if I had too much baking powder in.

Anyone else any ideas?

If you had too much baking powder it would have risen more! I think the baking powder amount sounds ok.

Can you double check the temperature of your oven. My cakes were always awful until I bought an oven thermometer and it turned out the awful cakes weren't my fault!! The oven temp was way out!

Also, always make sure you use the right size cake tins for the recipe.

Definitely had the right size sandwich tins.

Do you think my oven was too hot Stirling? I think my oven is fairly aggressive. Would too hot an oven have had this effect?

Yes, it can make part of the cake rise too quickly if the oven is too hot.

I bought an oven thermometer in Debenhams, but realise you aren't in uk. I know you can order them from Lakeland too.

Thanks for that Stirling. I will get one brought out to me soon and in the meantime will experiment with a cooler oven for my next sponge cake!