Lakeland "sunflower" silicone cake mould

morganlefay

Happy New year to everyone ! It's gotta be better, hasn't it ? It has here anyway.
please can anyone help: some (long) time ago I bought a HUGE sunflower-shaped silicone cake (jelly etc) mold from Lakeland and stashed it away and forgot about it. I have now found it and would like to try to make a big cheery birthday cake for a friend. BUT I do remember ringing them and asking how many eggs/sugar/butter etc I'd need for that size mold (I'm not an instinctive cake maker and need to follow a recipe exactly). They couldn't say - which was unlike Lakeland, so I put the mold away and never used it. Now i'd like to do just a simple victoria sponge in it - does anyone have one, and if so how many eggs etc do I need, and how long would I cook it for ??
Any assistance very gratefully received...........

grunnie

I know this is going to sound silly but it will help to find the size of the mould. Can you fill it with water and then pour the water into a measuring jug and let me know how much there is. That should help me work out the size :

morganlefay

Thanks Grunnie ! Following small accident on kitchen floor (well it needed washing anyway) I'd say about 1.5 litres of water filled the mold almost to the top - does that help ?

grunnie

I would use 6 oz caster sugar and 6 oz marg. Cream that together till it goes a lighter colour. Measure out 6 oz self raising flour -sieve it if you have a sieve. Add 3 eggs- beat in 1 at a time with a small amount of the flour. Then fold in the rest of the flour with a metal spoon. Grease the mould with a little marg on a bit of kitchen papertowel . I would put it in a preheated oven 160 til the top is browning and it is coming away from the edges a bit -it really depends on your own oven maybe 25-40mins. Been baking for years but usually stay well away from moulds as I am too lazy to wash them.

morganlefay

Than you so much Grunnie, now why couldn't lakeland have told me that at the start - the thing was darn expensive so I didn't want to go adding ruined cakes to the cost of it. I'll let you know what my sunflower looks like !
(And I got my kitchen floor washed too !):beer:

annie-c

Hello

If you want to be absolutely sure then you could take an old cake tin, of which you already know the size/ingredient ratio and with the use of a measuring jug calculate how many times you can fill the old cake tin with the water contained in the new one.

So, for example, if the water from your new tin is sufficient to fill 4 x your old (2 egg) tin, then you know you need an 8 egg recipe.

Does that make sense?

morganlefay

It does indeed make sense and I can't think why I couldn't think of that (my brain freezes when confronted with baking) but I still wouldn't know how long to cook it and I had it so drummed into me by my mother that it is DREADFUL to open the oven with cake in, so I've just lost my nerve and never got it back (and I'm now mid 60's - v sad !!!) Thank you so much.:beer:

annie-c

What's the worst thing that can happen - you'll just lose one cake at most! And yet there's a whole world of sunflower silicone cakes just waiting to open up to you if you'll take a risk!

Two things to consider:

1 When you were little you were not expert at opening the oven door either carefully or quickly and so your mum probably drummed it into you not to do it because she didn't want your podgy child like hands wafting cold air onto her cakes! Maybe your kitchen wasn't as well heated as the one you have now. Certainly ingredients would have been proportionately more expensive and wastefulness more frowned upon.... But, you're all grown up now and you can take a chance! Best bet is to take a rough estimate of how long the cake will need to cook (by looking at recipes for cakes with a similar no. of eggs) and at that stage have a quick peek and use a skewer or knitting needle to poke in the cake to the bottom to test if it is cooked all the way through. If you have a glass viewing panel, then better still - wait till the cake is risen and pale golden colour first before opening the door... Do it swiftly and repeat every 5 mins until the cake is cooked. Then make a note of it and next time, bob's your uncle....

2 Also, remember that though cold air causes cakes to sink a little, it doesn't turn them into dog food or rat poison - you can still eat sunken cakes, and actually they can taste quite nice, esp with custard or fruit to make them more pudding like! Hell, if uyou go too far and it turns out crusty, you have trifle sponge!

Go on.... be a devil....

oldMcDonald

annie-c wrote:

What's the worst thing that can happen - you'll just lose one cake at most! And yet there's a whole world of sunflower silicone cakes just waiting to open up to you if you'll take a risk!

Two things to consider:

1 When you were little you were not expert at opening the oven door either carefully or quickly and so your mum probably drummed it into you not to do it because she didn't want your podgy child like hands wafting cold air onto her cakes! Maybe your kitchen wasn't as well heated as the one you have now. Certainly ingredients would have been proportionately more expensive and wastefulness more frowned upon.... But, you're all grown up now and you can take a chance! Best bet is to take a rough estimate of how long the cake will need to cook (by looking at recipes for cakes with a similar no. of eggs) and at that stage have a quick peek and use a skewer or knitting needle to poke in the cake to the bottom to test if it is cooked all the way through. If you have a glass viewing panel, then better still - wait till the cake is risen and pale golden colour first before opening the door... Do it swiftly and repeat every 5 mins until the cake is cooked. Then make a note of it and next time, bob's your uncle....

2 Also, remember that though cold air causes cakes to sink a little, it doesn't turn them into dog food or rat poison - you can still eat sunken cakes, and actually they can taste quite nice, esp with custard or fruit to make them more pudding like! Hell, if uyou go too far and it turns out crusty, you have trifle sponge!

Go on.... be a devil....

Having had the same message drummed into me as a kid, I too am scared stiff of baking!

Your right, lifes too short not to live a little and be a devil - even if the most risk taking you are prepared to take is to open an oven door!!

morganlefay

Annie-c are you psychic ? how did you know my little hands were very pudgy ? You are so right and I thank you hugely. I LOVE this thread because you not only get moneysaving help, but wisdom about Life. How sensible, it's only a bit of butter and an egg or two and I could always maki it into a trifle if it flopped anyway, AND I have a splendid Neff which really doesn't mind having its door opened ,. But it took you saying it to get me to see the truth of it - time to grow up, really. Please have a big hug from me, and wine, and beer and chocolate and all nice things !:beer: :beer: :beer:

annie-c

morganlefay, I've only just found this and you have cheered up my day. For reasons I don't want to go into I cried all the way home from work yesterday and hardly slept a wink last night. I've made a really tough decision today that has taken a load off my mind but left me exhausted. I needed a hug and you gave me one on Wednesday, in advance of my need! thank you!