Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A

Hi, I am a beginner to cake making and thought I would have a go with Paul’s moist chocolate cake. I used a 10″ and 6″ cake tin, followed the recipe spot on and put them both into the oven at 150 for 2hrs, the small was completely burnt and the large was burnt on top and edges.

I then tried it again using 100g less caster sugar and putting it into the fan assisted oven at 130 for 2hrs, again with exact same result. The middle was lovely though.

Any ideas?

Hi nickyd

Perhaps your oven is running hotter than what the external temp dial reads. This is a common problem with a lot of ovens, mine was the same from new! Do you have an oven thermometer? If you don’t have one it might be worth the investment. In my experience cakes burn because the temperature is too high and cooking time too long so an adjustment would be required.

Hi madeitwithlove, thanks very much, I thought it was the tem but changed my mind as the oven is only 6 months old. I’ll invest in a thermometer and try it again sometime, thanks.

Hi nickyd

Also double line the cake tin and keep the lining paper 2″ above the rim of the tin, it just helps protect the cake from burning. Once baked the cake will have a hard crust, let it cool in the tin then wrap it up and freeze. This will help the crust to soften. You might do better to bake the cakes separately, I always worry about the small cake baking for 2 hours. Tin sizes can be converted here http://www.cakeflix.com/blog/how-to-work-out-what-size-cake-tin-to-use converting from 10″ square, that’s the amount of batter which is used in the 10 and 6″ round. For a bit more information which might help have a little peek here http://www.cakeflix.com/questions/chocolate-cake-height-and-put-in-fridge
Good luck with next bake! x

Madeitwithlove what if you haven’t got time to freeze and defrost? Can you soften the crust quicker a different way???? 🙂

Hi mummybroccoli

The crust will soften if you just wrap the cake up in cling film and let it rest in an airtight container. But it still takes time so you may as well freeze it for a short while. The cake handles much, much better for freezing, there’s less chance of it breaking or crumbling. Perhaps plan baking it the day before it’s required or just remove the crust with a very sharp bread knife. I have also read in other forums where people wrap cakes up while warm, I don’t know whether that would work, I’ve not done so.

Hi, just thought I would update (a little late I know) It was my oven, I got a thermometer and it was running 40 degrees hotter. All great now, thanks