Why do cakes sometime rise lopsided?
Asked by
Sariperana (
1450
)
March 11th, 2010
from iPhone
Tonight I baked two chocolate cakes, both from the same mixture halved into two tins- banged all the bubbles out, put both tins in the oven and then rotated said cakes at time measured intervals. One is perfectly rounded whilst the other has some major slope issues… WHY does this happen?
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15 Answers
Sounds like you did everything right – so annoying of that cake!
Therefore all I can offer is points for your great list of topics, including the intriguing “cherry, no ants”.
The last cake I baked did the same thing.The shallow end was alittle burnt too.lol
I think the earth was spinning too fast that day.:)
It could be the fault of the oven or the cake mixture. Unfortunately cooking is the slow simple cousin of chemistry, far less accurate and more prone to failure.
My guess is that your oven heats unevenly. This has a good list of possible issues.
maybe your oven is uneven.Try smaking the pan down on the counter before you bake, it releases air and evens out the batter.
It usually that the oven doesn’t have even heating.
You must turn the cakes in an oven which heats unevenly. Try a convection oven.
The OP did turn the cakes and knocked the bubbles out. I feel for you, because sometimes the cuisine fairies just don’t want to play fair. Fortunately, there are knives and icing to fix those annoying glitches.
You must turn the cakes very slowly and very very carefully…
You oven wasn’t pre-heated long enough.
You pan wasn’t centered and didn’t heat uniformly.
Uneven mixing of the batter. The bottom of the mix may have had less moisture and if that is dumped off to one side of the pan you will get uneven cakes.
You peeked before it was cooked!!
It sounds like your oven doesn’t heat evenly. This problem can be minimized by adequate pre-heating. Do you have a separate oven thermometer? The built-in ones are usually pretty far off. If you don’t, buy one ASAP, and then use it. When it says the oven is the right temperature, wait 20–30 more minutes, then put the cakes in. That should solve your problem.
I have always blessed icing for this phenomenon. You did more than I ever do. I never turn them and it’s not too often one is crooked but sometimes, blame it on the devil.
@susanc Thanks – the list of topics was posted out of order – it was a choc cherry cake and i hope that if i left the mess cleaning up until tomorrow because i am feeling lazy, that there will be no ants!
Thanks everyone for your insight – i always thought there was Goblins in the kitchen!!
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