baking disaster?

[marina294]

I tend to make cakes for home for DH lunch and desert usually simple loaf cakes like boiled fruit cake, banana cake tea cake and some round cakes like a victoria sponge or carrot cake. Im by no means a fantastic baker but they always came out pleasantly edible. We moved home over a year ago so new oven and also having a new baby i didnt get to bake as much but now i have time they are coming out terrible. Over done dry and barely rising. even if i keep an eye on it and cook to the temp in the recipe I know that there are many factors depending on recipe but i just made a teacake in a 2lb loaf tin and although its moist is half the height it should be but if i put in a smaller tin its almost escaping out. My ingredients are fresh the only thing i can think of is ive been useing value flour to cut costs maybe thats why?

 

[sunshine114]

I've always found that cheaper flour never works as well - I always stick to home pride or mcdougalls

 

[amytrisha]

Have you changed oven types? I find electric ovens make food so dry whereas gas are better IMO.
I agree about the flour though, I've not been able to find a cheap one that works well. X

 

[marina294]

no still electric fan oven but i do find this one seems particularly hot. will get some better quality flour and try that first i think.

 

[C_baby]

I use basics flour and I've never had a problem. Though i have heard people sometimes don't get good results with it so its worth trying. It sounds like your oven temperature to me. You could buy a cheapish in oven thermostat and then you'd know what exactly it was doing.

 

[amytrisha]

Also if you find food is drying out try cooking with a bowl of water in the bottom of your cooker

 

[sapphire1]

Value flour is fine, I often use it and it doesn't tend to make much difference - not to the rising anyway. It does make a bit of a difference to the texture, but not enough to warrant not using it. Your oven temp is probably incorrect, definitely get an oven thermometer. My oven is 25 degrees cooler than it says, makes a massive difference to baking. My old oven was 10 degrees hotter. Baking is quite an exact science, if something is off kilter then a recipe won't turn out well.

 

[marina294]

thanks will get a thermometer and see if it is true to what it should be

 

[beth_terri]

I've been using basics flour and been having the same problems! In fact the last batch of buns I made were perfect and I used bero as it had been on offer...!

I'm baking my sons birthday cake this weekend so will use bero! X

 

[summer rain]

I was going to say oven temperature as well. My sister's oven was either a lot hotter than it said or a lot cooler in the end she had to fork out for a new one as all of her baking and cooking was getting ruined. I have a fan assisted oven, stand alone, not built in and one of the problems it has is actually being too steamy and moist inside-the instruction book warns about this. So this might also be a reason for things going wrong. On some recipes I make them 'drier' by using less liquid than the recipe states and they work out better. I find value flour fine to use, it's less refined but that's ok for less precise types of cake recipe anyway. Since it's very tricky to make delicate, precise types of cakes in a vegan way I don't need any fancy flour. One thing to bear in mind though is flours can vary dramatically in terms of moisture content, even from batch to batch of the same flour. This is particularly the case with cheaper flours as they change suppliers all the time. Xx

 

[nexis]

I always use basics flour and its never been a problem.

 

[Equreuil]

see if you can find an oven safe thermometer and stick it inside, when cold. Then see what the inside one says after the oven is done preheating. Mine tends to end up a good 50 degrees hotter (if I set it to 350 it's actually closer to 400, for example).