What food did you last make

Clodius

Social media pushed in my feed a home made kebab recipe. Turned out to be easy to make and came out delicious.

dfk41

I made a Honey cake for a friend in a round tin. It was fine till I took it out of the oven then it sunk! So, I made another but changed to a loaf tin. Being a lot deeper I turned it up 10 degrees to 150 and baked it for 55 minutes without checking. When I took it out it was cooked but once again, though not as much, it has sunk slightly

dfk41

I have been reading up to try and find why these cakes sink. The loaf tin one on cooling has sunk even more. It seems to be cooked though. Suggestions range from too liquidy to being cooked wrongly. I have looked at many recipes now and they are all exactly the same with the same methodology. So, I am scratching my head slightly now and would welcome any suggestions. This is the recipe and methodology.

225 gms unsalted butter.

250 gms honey

100 gms dark muscovado

300 gms self raising flour

3 large eggs

Melt the butter, sugar and honey in a pan and once melted and nice and smooth turn up the heat and boil for 1 minute.

Lightly beat 3 eggs

Sift the flour into a bowl

Once the mixture has cooled sufficiently to stop the eggs cooking, pour the eggs in and stir thoroughly with a wooden spoon to combine. Then stir the mixture into the flour and stir thoroughly with the wooden spoon to combine.

Pour into your prepared tin and cook for 50 to 60 minutes at 140. The second attempt (loaf tin) I cooked at 150 (not that a non digital over is particularly accurate). Yet the cake looks and tastes very nice.

Finish off by heating a couple of tablespoons of honer and brushing over the top

LMSC

dfk41 That looks yum mate. 😋

I do not bake as regularly as I would like. IMO, the method and ingredients look solid for a classic honey cake. I think issue is it’s a very wet, heavy batter (lots of honey and melted sugar, no creaming for air) baked quite gently, so it rises fine but the structure sets late and then drops back a bit as it cools.

To see if that fixes it, I would reduce honey may be by 25-35g, increase flour by an equal amount, add ½ tsp of baking powder, and bake a little hotter (160 fan / 170 conventional for 50-60 mins (not checking before 40-45 mins). These changes may give a bit more support to stop the cake from sinking. I assume you are lining the tin (at least the base). It will taste as fine as before as you still have got a lot of honey and sugar.

Edit:

Deeper the tin, the slower the cake sets especially at the centre coupled with trapped steam. They require additional heat.

You may also add a pinch of salt as it may help tighten the crumps.

Clodius

Made a super tasty and simple chicken piccata https://themodernproper.com/chicken-piccata

Elcarajillo

Clodius Not heard of this, gave it a try with new pots,cauliflower and french beans. Most impressed

Pompeyexile

dfk41

According to my Great British Bake Off ‘How to avoid a soggy bottom’ book the reason it gives for a sinking cake is underbaked centre. The centre takes longer to cook than the outer and it says the egg flour and fat structure has not heated through enough and so sinks upon cooling.

Perhaps when near the end of the bake you could test the temperature in the centre. I have a very accurate Thermopen thermometer and have found this invaluable not just for meat.

dfk41

Pompeyexile I do test it once using a metal spike in a couple of places. It always comes out ‘clean’ and the sinking comes as the cake cools. I have listened to what folks have said and am going to make the adjustments @LMSC suggested and will report back. Many thanks for your thoughts

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