No Matter What I Do.....they All Fall (Kinda Long)
Decorating By KathyTW Updated 4 Oct 2008 , 2:31am by whimsette
Hello everyone,
I am just so frustrated I could spit......after all my reading and researching here on CC about falling cakes/cupcakes I'm at my wits end as to what to try next. This has been going on for months.
I bake in a 1/2 size countertop convection oven. I've adjusted temps up and down asother posters have suggested (and I have an oven therm. in the oven). I've adjusted bake times and temps. My husband checked to make sure oven is "level".
I rotate, I use bake-even strips, I've tried a rose nail even in smaller cakes, I bake with a full oven, and only one at a time. I make cakes/cuppies from scratch and from different kinds of mixes. Absolutely nothing I do seems to help. The cakes/cupcakes either fall in the center, or sometimes especially with cuppies, they crawl out one side of the pan, even if I turn the pan.
If I bake any longer than I already do everything will be so dry and/or burnt I might as well not bake at all.
BTW, I don't have much trouble with cookies but I usually only bake NFSC that don't rise.
I'm going to try to post a PIC of today's cake for you to see but I've not done it in a post before so it may not work.
I would really appreciate any ideas, suggestions, etc. that I can try next.
TIA
Kathy
I can't see your picture for some reason. But maybe your scratch recipes need to be evaluated. Perhaps some of the ratios are off? Have you checked your baking powder?
Maybe your oven is level, but perhaps the countertop is not.
Sometimes over or undermixing can be the culprit as well. How often do you open your oven door to check on your cakes? Too often and it affects your oven temperature.
You could also have hot or cold spots in your oven. Have you moved the thermometer around to several different spots in the oven? Is there enough air circulation around each pan when you bake?
Do you have the ability to turn off the convection function and test it that way? I've heard of people having troubles with convection ovens.
One last possibility is the accuracy of your measuring devices. Too much or too little leavening can have a big effect on a cakes structure.
I'm sorry....that's all I've got. If you want to check your scratch recipes, you could order Shirley Corriher's book, Cookwise. She tells you how to evaluate a recipe and create ones of your own. It's a good investment and very helpful.
Thanks for the reply...I really appreciate it.
I baked another cake today - it didn't fall/sink.
I used the oven therm and discovered that the oven temp, even though correct, is taking much longer to pre-heat than the indicator light stays lit (when the light goes out it should be up to temp but it's not, it takes a good 5 minutes or more to get there)
So it looks like it is just a matter of making sure that the oven is pre-heated long enough!
Hopefully my success will continue.
Thanks Again,
Kathy
How's the seal on your oven door? I had some problems in my old place with an older oven that had a gasket around the door that would slip from time to time. It took a while to figure it out because the slip wasn't that obvious until I got down on my knees to oven level. 
Just a thought that might help you troubleshoot.
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