Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A

Hi There, I seen all of a sudden to have a problem with my cakes sinking in the middle. Even my cupcakes are sinking in the middle. My cakes have always been fine and I use the same recipe I always use and the same oven, I have tried Mrs Jones 10 in deep sponge and that sinks too. I just don’t know what all of a sudden has gone wrong, hoping someone can help

In my experience when my normal baking starts to go wrong the culpritt is usually the oven.
Sounds like your oven may not be getting up to temperature. Have you tried turning the temp a little?
The internal temperature of your oven can be easily checked with an oven thermometer. It’s an inexpensive tool which will accurately gauge the inner temperature of your oven to what you have set the outer dial. If the two don’t agree you can remedy the dial reading so the readings marry. Some ovens need recalibrating from time to time, it’s possible this is your problem. Oven thermometers also need changing as they become old. I hope this helps a little.

Thanks for your reply, I have a oven thermometer and it says the oven the right temp, I just don’t know what is happening, it’s only been the last month. Same everything but sunk cakes. The cakes are cooked through and I don’t open the door before time, I’m baffled. Will try turning oven up a little and see if that helps
Thanks Helen

Hi,

Reading around the internet I read somewhere to keep checks on your baking powder to make sure it’s not gone off and sometimes putting too much in can cause to much air in your cake so it kinda bursts like a balloon. I was having the same problem and thought stuff it as it was annoying me, I just swopped to self raising flower and don’t have the problem anymore.. I think I was over doing it with the baking powder myself but hay ho, this is how I learned.

Self raising flour which contains leavenings can also become flat. It helps to store leavenings and flours away from spaces which can trap moisture as in steam from electric kettles or saucepans. Damp renders leavenings to fizzle out and become ineffective. I learned the hard way too!

I had the same problem and mine did not cook in the middle. I had to buy a new oven. However I find not using a fan and cooking on a lower temperature 160 works well. The sponges seem to be lighter when not using a fan when cooking.

Morning all and thanks for your replies. My cakes sunk before I even took them out of the oven but they were cooked right through. I bought new everything just in case ingredients had been sitting on the shelf of the store for a while but the same thing happened. I started to think why in the hot weather they didn’t sink while now the weather had got colder they are now sinking and the only difference is I was softening the butter in the micro and it was liquid in the middle. I softened the butter on the weekend by leaving it near the radiator so it took it’s time to soften and found the cake came out ok. Don’t know if the butter being a little melted makes a difference but would value your thoughts on this.

Hi Helen

Now that puts a different face on things. You have correctly identified your culpritt in the saga of the sinking cakes! If you do a little experiment at home you’ll see what happen. Melt a little butter in the microwave and add some baking powder to it. You’ll see it fizzles. Baking powder is a double action leavening, it is activated by liquid and heat. The butter was liquid and no doubt warm as well from heating in the microwave. Further beating/creaming would have warmed it up even more so all the fizz which helps lift the cake batter during the baking process just wasn’t there. Science of baking! We now know why your lovely cakes were sinking! x