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I normally bake Victoria sponge cakes using an 8-inch tin for 50 minutes at 160c (320f), on the fan/forced air setting.

Today I attempted a 10-inch, same temperature but increasing the time to 1 hr 15 mins. However, the middle sank when I removed it from the oven, and the skewer test showed that it was uncooked in the centre.

It was already browning so didn't want to risk increasing the time any further. What else could I have done differently?

I did fill the 10-inch tin more than I would an 8-inch, so perhaps I should have stayed with the same depth?

RosePumpkin
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Andrew Stephens
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  • Related answer: https://cooking.stackexchange.com/a/27516/67 – Joe Oct 23 '22 at 15:04
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    Might be useful to look at the recipes on the boxes of brownie or cake mixes, they generally show how much pan size and type changes things. The one I'm looking at has 25 min at 350 for one size of pan and 45 at 325 for another size, so the difference can be quite dramatic. – eps Oct 24 '22 at 17:21

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You added more volume to the cake so you will need to make adjustments to bake it thoroughly. A couple of things I recommend:

  1. not only increase the time but also reduce your temperature. This will help your cake cook through to the center before overcooking the edges. I recommend reducing in 15 degree (F) intervals as you experiment.
  2. part way through your bake (once the edges begin to brown), place foil around the edges to keep them from browning further while still allowing the center to cook.
  3. bonus- I'd guess the collapsing comes from the center being uncooked, so the above should help, but if you're still running into this problem also consider your mixing methods (let eggs come to room temp, cream fat and sugar before adding eggs, etc.) these can affect the airiness of the batter and ultimately rise.
youreawizardcarrie
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A greater volume will take longer to bake, especially if the cake is deeper so the centre is further from the outside. Collapsing means it was not fully baked, as you have noted. Having a shallower cake will help although then you will obviously have less cake in total.

To reduce browning, you could put foil over the cake to reduce the surface exposure to the heat of the oven; you can also buy/improvise insulating covers for the sides of the tin which slow the heat transfer to the edges of the cake. The cake will still take longer but hopefully without browning as much.

dbmag9
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As you noted: you should indeed have stayed with the same depth. Cake recipes are optimised for a given layer thickness, and while fudging the time (and a bit with the temperature) will help to an extent, it won't be able to compensate for large differences.

If your cake becomes too deep, the only option to bake it at once becomes a bundt pan. Many recipes do quite well when done in a bundt, but not all of them, you'll have to test yours. The closer the batter is to a muffin batter, the higher the probability that it will do well in a bundt.

If you want a taller cake, the standard thing is to bake the batter in several layers separately. While it is possible to cut cake layers horizontally, this is usually done only if the original recipe foresees it.

You can of course also bake a wider cake. Depth scales quadratically with the tin bottom area. To get the same depth, you can use 1 batch of batter in an 8 inch (20 cm) tin, 1.5 batches in a 10 inch (26 cm) tin, or 2 batches in a 11 inch (28 cm) tin.

rumtscho
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