Hi guys, I wonder if someone can please help me figure out what I:m doing wrong with my baking.  I  know the pic below purely looks like this cake is undercooked, but what I don't understand is that I checked this cake several times towards the end of the baking time & although its only a 6" vanilla sour cream cake it took well over an hour to cook & when I first checked, the top had cracked & the middle was still uncooked!   I do use homemade baking strips when cooking a bigger cake, mainly if they are mud cakes, but for a cake this size I really didn;t think it was necessary..maybe thats incorrect?  I checked the cake several times further before my flat bladed knife came out completely clean (also checked in several different area of the cake not just one) After cutting off the top cracked part (which did look slightly undercooked/doughey) as  you can see from the attached picture, the middle is definitely still undercooked/doughey.  So annoying, what am I doing wrong? Do any of  you experienced bakers out there think this could actually be more to do with the mixing of the batter rather than the cooking method?  This has happened to me a couple of times now & I' really beginning to feel like giving up (although have baked perfectly good cakes in the past!) So really not sure whats going on:((  I do use an oven thermometer by the way in case oven not very accurate & cooked this cake at 150d.  Any advice would be more than welcome.  Thanks guys.

AUmmm... Is that 150° Fahrenheit or Celsius? Also, it sounds like your cake is just too wet to begin with. Could you post your recipe?

Hi Anna...its 150C.  The recipe is for the Lemon Sour Cream Cake (but I replaced with vanilla bean paste & halved this recipe from a 9" for the 6" as was only trialling it for family at this stage (which sounds like a good idea with my baking successes at the momement!)

so recipe for 9" as follows:

250gms butter

2 tbls grated lemon rind

2 cups(440gms) caster sugar

6 eggs

2 cups(330gms) plain flour

1/4 cup (180gms) SR flour

3/4 cup (180gms) sour cream at room temp

Recipe states that for this amount of batter for a 9" pan, baking time approx 1hr 25 mins (which my little 6" virtually took!)

I had a cake to do this once and come to find out I was adding to much baking powder. Also sometimes your baking powder could be old.  So I would start by checking the date on the baking powder or soda and than make sure I am adding the right amount.  Good luck and dont give up somedays in baking are heaven sent and others are just Ummmm................. I dont even have a word for it

ADid you make a division error, perhaps? And honestly, I don't like the looks of a cake recipe that doesn't have the leavening listed is measurable amounts, just self rising flour weirdos me out.

There may be too many eggs in the recipe. I had cupcakes look like that once when I used larger eggs than normal, and 6 eggs seems like a lot for a 6 inch cake.

Hi There, thanks for the suggestion but I did halve all the ingredients as original recipe is for a 9" cake, so only 3 eggs used (at least I got that bit right!)  Thanks for your input anyway.