Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A

Hi – I am looking at making the Tractor cake for my son’s birthday. I am going to use the Moist Choc Cake recipe with 10″ square cake tin. I am going to try for a 4″ depth as the tractor recipe says it needs a ‘deep’ cake – assuming 4″ will be deep enough?!
I have used the re-calculator to get the ingredient list for 4″ but it doesn’t say about baking times – any idea how long I should bake for?
Thanks!

Hi laurenfenton

Baking times are not given on re-scaled recipes as not all ovens bake the same. It’s best to keep a close eye and nose on first-time bakes in order to gauge the time it would take in your own oven.

The original recipe is for a 3″ deep cake which can be made as a 10″ square. Paul bakes for 2 hours on 150c or 130c fan oven.

Increasing the depth to 4″ is approximately an extra 25% mixture which will probably need an additional 40 minutes depending on how fierce or gently your oven bakes. I’ve baked this recipe many times in its original format. A 3″ deep cake produces a 2.5″ final cake. I should think a 4″ deep recipe will produce approximately a 3.5″ cake. You’ll have plenty of cake to make the tractor.

Paul’s advice is not to be tempted to open the oven door until the full-time is up to prevent a cake collapse. This is why it will be important to keep an eye on the baking and decide when you think the centre is set and safe to open the oven. Sometimes the recipe can be a little tricky.

You’ll find heaps of hints and tips for a successful bake in the following link:

‘Paul’s moist chocolate cake’ My feed back

I really recommend looking through the member comments as they are extremely useful.

Finally, it helps to double line the cake tin inside and out to prevent the corners of the cake from burning. Baking belts are really helpful too if you have them, or you could make them yourself. There are plenty of tutorials on youtube showing how to make them. Hope some of these suggestions help. 🙂

Thank you so much for your in depth response! I’m about to make a start on the cake, ready for decorating tomorrow….fingers crossed!!

Good luck ?. I hope all goes well. The comments in the link I set are really, really helpfully. I hope you’ve managed to catch a few of them. Look forwards to your feedback. ?

Yes, I had a read through and I’m trying some of haamna’s tips of reducing sugar and blending the 2 liquid mixtures before adding to dry and then making a baking belt as you suggested 🙂