Hello all,
I;ve been a member for a while but this is my first post! I really hope someone can help. I've done lots of celebration cakes but never tried a really big one until last night. I used my usual madeira cake recipe but just tripled it. Normally I make it in my eight inch pan, this one was for an 11 inch pan.

I baked it for an hour (the time I would bake the eight inch pan for) and checked; the edges were done but the centre was still liquid. I then kept checking every ten minutes; well, after 1.30 the edges were starting to burn but the centre, although pretty much cooked, still had a slightly goopy look to it - I would have liked to leave it in a little longer.

So what did I do wrong? I had baking bands on, which should have helped. SHould I have lowered the temperature from teh beginning? BY how much? Should I have covered it? I read on a blog somewhere that the cooking time shouldn't increase if you scale up, but how can that be? There's so much more to cook!

Thanks to anyone who can help me.

Sarah x

Definitely lower the temp by 25 degrees and you will definitely have to increase the baking time. How long? Well, until it's done!

You might also want to read in the Cake Bible about scaling up recipes. You really don't just triple all the ingredients.

And Pink is correct, turn that temp down for larger cakes. I often bake at 300 for the big ones.

Thank you, that's helpful.

What's the Cake Bible?

Well, as might be suspected, it's a book.

Er, right, OK. I'm in England, and I haven't heard of that book. I'm sorry if my questions seem incredibly basic to you, but as I mentioned, it's the first time that I've scaled up like this.

I'm a newbie too so don't take my word for gospel truth, but, when I do big cakes I insert flower nails upside down into the batter just before baking. I got this helpful hint by reading other posts on cc. It worked nicely for me. Good luck next time.....

Thanks Frangygirl, I have heard about that and was going to do it but couldn't find my flowernail last night. It's good to know that you do it upside down as well - I didnt realise that bit!

Using a heating core helps...

The Cake Bible is a good book that talks about everything that has to do with cakes, buttercreams, etc...The author is Rose Levy Beranbaum.

Keep asking questions, that is a good way to learn!

HTH
Marcela

Thanks so much. Have pmed you.

By the way, feel free to pm me anytime you like if you have other questions about cakery, like I said, I'm a newbie (I just finished Wilton course 3), but I spend ooodles of free time researching stuff on cc.....and have learned many interesting things from all the wonderful members.