Burn baby burn

During the making of the mammoth 4th birthday cake project, I made a real a baking breakthrough.

I did a bit of googling before I embarked on the six hour bakeathon (two 8 inch and two 6 inch madeira sponges that need baking separately thanks to a tiny and unpredictable oven) and I'm sorry to say I cannot remember where I discovered these little gems but thank you to all sources, whoever you may be!

I wanted some tips on the age old question of how to stop the edges of a sponge cake burning during cooking. Mine have always turned out lovely in the middle but very hard and crisp on the outside.

 Initially I lined the tins with Wilton cake release and baking paper and I used the madeira cake recipe from my book by The Pink Whisk - 'The Busy Girl's Guide to Cake Decorating'.

Some of the tips I found mentioned wrapping newspaper round the outside of the cake tin too. However, as I never have any spare time to read a newspaper we don't buy them and so this wasn't an option! I just made sure the baking paper was high enough round the sides.

I poured the mixture into the tins and then made a well in the middle so that the majority of the cake mix was around the sides of the tin and you could almost see the bottom of the cake tin in the middle.

Then - THE IMPORTANT BIT - place the cake on the middle shelf and put a baking tray on the top shelf, above the cake. Then bake the cake as per the recipe but lower the temp by about half a gas mark (I'm guessing about 15-20 degrees celcius) and bake for the time indicated. Once the time is up, check on the cake with a cocktail stick or scewer inserted in the middle. If it comes out clean it's ready, if the sponge is still moist, it needs longer. Keep your eye on it. It's not an exact science, some ovens will take longer, some will be hotter than others; an oven thermometer is the only way to know the exact temperature when cooking.

As you can see from the naked cakes, the mixture has stil risen in the middle, despite there being hardly any mixture here. If you bake it with the mixture evenly spread in the tin, they will rise even more and you end up wasting (or eating) a lot of cake when you have to level them off.

So try this and leave a comment letting me know if this worked for you.

Happy and successful baking!