Darn cake - very wasteful....

morganlefay

here I am trying to be thrifty by not buying biscuits etc and making a nice HM cake for weekend instead. I found a fab recipe in a book - coffee walnut with mascarpone filling, and off I went. The instructions say to use a 22cm/1.3l loaf tin so I found my biggest one (it is that size, I measured it). But the recipe whisks the egg whites to add to the mix and it makes a huge and fluffy bowlful. It uses 4 eggs 225g flour and 225g sugar. On cooking it overflowed the tin and when done had a top which made it look like an aircraft carrier - v top heavy. it tastes fab, but I could never serve it to fussy people (fortunately family only too happy with HM cake so don't complain) but I don't want another expensive mistake. If I did it in a round tin next time please can someone clever tell me how big a tin, and how long should I cook it for (this one was cooked for 55 mins.)
I remember Delia in her first TV series being very stern about how success with cakes was all about getting the right size tin, but I never seem to get it right and keep wasting money on getting it wrong. Any advice most welcome please

I would post the recipe but got it out of a book I got from the library, don't want to get into copyright trouble. Book is Annie Bell's 'Gorgeous Cakes' and there are some fab things in there !

tifnstav

that sounds gorgeous. i have one cake tin, had it two years, no idea how big it is in measurements but one day i will use it.
i promise!

ubamother

if you line the tin with baking parchment, make it much higher than usual - like a collar sticking up - it if overflows this will lessen or stop the sideways overflow and you will have made an impressively tall cake!

sillyvixen

when you find cake recipies that work for you keep to the same ones (mine are victoria sponge, chocolate marble cake, bananna cake and my grannies fruit cake recipe, i keep a couple in the freezer just in case i know someone is coming round and defrost as necessary. i generally do not have cake available in the house only in the freezer. my other 'special' cakes that have worked are white choc truffle cake and death by chocolate cake - but it has to be a really special occasion as they cost a bomb (in choc alone). basically find a few recipies and stick to them-rotating the recipes. i have some nice spring form tins that give a nice deep cake mix with most recipies - it took me a long time to find the right size, but generrally i cook cakes in dread tins as i usually bake for the freezer and you get better use out of 2 frozen loaf tins than a big round tin..also they stack better in my freezer - like bricks.

noonesperfect

I can guarantee that whatever size/shape cake tin that is called for I won't have it (even tho' I've got loads of tins!!)

It took years to discover that if the recipes says e.g. 9" round tin you can use an 8" square and so on.

That said I made a date and walnut cake tonight that said I should use a 6" round tin,since I don't have one I broke the rule and used a 6" square, but cooked the cake for less time. It worked a treat :j .

For some reason though, if I use loaf tins the cakes never seem to cook very well .


The coffee cake sounds really yum by the way, is there any going spare......

ceridwen

...a non cakemaker here....but just a thought.....doesnt everyones favourite kitchen shop (aka Lakeland) have one of those caketins that you can put bits in and out (sounds like a cue for "doing the hokey cokey" lol) and adjust the size according to requirements each time?

noonesperfect

They do indeed.

I can't speak for others, but though I would rather have one multi-tasking tin which takes up little space there is nothing wrong with any of the tins I've got (probably about 10 not including shallower roasting-type tins for tray bakes, or loaf tins comes to that) and I'm not about to replace them any time soon - very wasteful IMHO

However should the time come when I want to move house I may give them all to free-cycle and get one of the hokey-cokey ones!!!