How to prevent 12" cake burning?

[hobnob]

I am increasing a recipe for an 8" cake for a 12" one. How can I prevent it burning on the outside while cooking properly in the middle? Should I lower the oven temperature, or is this madness? Any tips will gratefully appreciated.

I have done it by lowering the oven temp from 180 after about 10 mins, take it down to 160. Also line tin with greaseproof, I have no clue why but it seems to stop the edges from burning.

is it a fancy-shaped one, or more straightforward round/square/loaf?

If I'm baking something that has a tendancy to burn (I tend to get it with loaf cakes) a pop a piece of greaseproof paper over the top of the cake for the last quarter of the cooking time. It works a treat for stopping the top burning.

What gigglewitch said, plus (if it's fruit cake) cover the outside of the tin with brown paper.

If it's sponge, I've never needed to do anything.

Thank you all for such speedy and helpful replies.

It's a round cake, and I'm using a recipe with jam and chocolate in the mixture (Nigella's chocolate-orange cake except with apricot jam instead of marmalade).

So, I will do all of your tips. Should I do the covering of the outside of the tin with brown paper thing too, do you think?

sounds delish, can we all have some when it's beautifully baked?

I would cover the outside of the tin as well as putting greaseproof on the top (I use a couple of layers of greaseproof round the tin for my Christmas cake instead of brown paper which works fine, although oven temp is really quite low). For big cakes I usually cook at about Gas Mark 3 (not sure what that is in C, about 160-170 I think).

Of course, gigglewitch. I'll send some down the line.

Thank you for that, jellycat. It's all beginning to sound possible now. It's my present to a friend for her 40th, so I want it to be a success.

Just resurrecting the zombie to see if he reappears.

My dm used to put a collar of corrugated paper around the outside of the Christmas cake to stop the edge burning.

If you don't have any, you can make it by pulling the outside layer off a piece of cardboard carton.

Make as light indentation in the centre of the cake. Also cover the top of the cake with two layers of grease proof paper with a 1 inch hole cut out of the middle.

Lowest shelf in the oven too.

Use a cake cone, if you can get one. That will draw heat in to the middle of the cake. This means that as well as the cake cooking from the outside in, it also cooks from the inside out and reduces the cooking time needed, thus reducing the chance of the cake drying out. If you can't get a cake cone, you could put a 5" or 6" pan in the middle and cook cake both in that and between that and the outside. You will then have a slight gap between the inside cake and the outside cake when they are cooked, but you then join them up with jam or buttercream and hide under the icing.