How to make a cake

Did you find a Mackintosh cake mould paddyannz?
I have had no luck (I suspect they don’t exist!) but thought you might like to see this
www.designer-cakes.com/online-cake-decorating-courses/charles-rennie-mackintosh-cake

Even easier than a conventional sponge make a banana cake. Just mix together 125g golden sugar and 225g butter. Add 2 eggs and mix with the butter sugar mix. Mash up 3 large over ripe bananas and mix into the mix. In a separate bowl put 240g plain flour and a teaspoonful of bicarb of soda. Start adding the mix intoit until it is all blended together. Put in a 2lb loaf tin (I use the loaf tin paper liners so no need to grease the tin) and bake at 165C fan oven for about 1 hour. Test with a fork that it is cooked. Allow to cool and you have a very tasty cake

4oz is near enough 100g. I left school 46 years ago, but even then we were taught grams and millilitres. My digital scales measure in metric by default so I tend to use that, especially when baking with the GC.
I mostly bake cakes when I've got gone off fruit- apple cake or banana loaf! I use soft margarine and put all the ingredients into the bowl and whisk them all together. I've never had any complaints.
Silicon bakeware makes getting sponges out very easy without needing to grease and line.

Nigella’s chocolate brownies are wonderful, and quite an easy recipe.
gillianskitchen.com/nigella-lawson-chocolate-brownies/
(scroll down)

I sometimes think baking is like a chemistry experiment.

DD makes wonderful Victoria sponges, weighs everything meticulously. Very consistent. I make hit and miss scones (more hit than miss), throwing everything into the bowl never measuring anything.

Today’s offering, lemon drizzle

My digital scales will use either type of measure but I nearly always convert old recipes to metric -I round up or down to a sensible amount -as long as it is almost the same it doesn't make much difference. Not a problem with electric/digital scales anyway
Most modern recipes put grams firat and ounces in in brackets anyway (including Mary Berry !)
By the way of course I've no problem with many of you using imperial (we all use whatever we find easiest obviously ) -I was just surprised.

Same here - I've recently changed fro a gas oven to an electric fan oven and found I need to reduce the heat and timing.

Absutely Greyduster! Mine is a fan oven and I always lower the temp and reduce the time (but i still burn things and blame the oven!)

start with a simple pie with apples)

I made a chocolate cake with courgettes this morning. It was the first one I came across when I googled it. I put a lot less sugar in it, about a third Qas we are a low sugar family but added a sprinkle of raisins and substituted other nuts for walnuts which my daughter reacts to. Then at lunch I ate far too much of it, really delicious.

I rarely follow a recipe exactly and if I have ripe bananas will just beat them with eggs and oil, and simply add dry ingredients (no sugar but spices, fruit, nuts etc. ) until it is the right constituency.

Regarding ozs and lbs : I have two sets of weights for my old fashioned scales, because Grannie was British and my other grandmother Danish, so it depends on whose recipe I am using, which weights I need.

And no, trying to convert old recipes into the other system, just doesn't work as often as not, as you end up with some totally ridiculous amount which is impossible to weigh accurately.

If they end up dry, it sounds to me, as if you are baking them a little too long, or that your oven is a little hotter than it ought to be.

Any cake baked in a cake tin can be tested using a knitting needle that you keep for that purpose. You need a metal one, obviously, and it should be properly washed before you start using it. After that popping it in the washing up is sufficient.

When you think the cake is ready, draw the cake tin out of the oven and stick the needle into the middle of the cake. Withdraw it at once. If there is any cake mixture adhering to it when it comes out of the tin, the cake is not baked through. If the needle is dry, then it is time to take the cake out of the oven.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by saying your cakes are diagonal- if they are higher at one end of the cake tin than the other, your oven is standing squint - test it when it is cold with a spirit level.

Usually cakes are higher in the middle than at the edges, irrespective of whether your cake tin is round or rectangular.

An American friend of mine once gave me a recipe for an applesauce cake, which used, amongst other things, twelve fluid ounces of puréed apples, and corn oil. The batter was very liquid, but the finished result was the most delicious cake I have ever eaten. The Americans seem to use a lot of corn oil in their baking (Betty Crocker mixes call for it too), and the cakes seem to be moister and keep better - or it could just be my imagination! Can I just add, too, unless someone already has and I have missed it, that if you are using a fan oven and a recipe calls for 180 degrees, unless it specifies 180 degrees fan, you may have to lower the thermostat by about twenty degrees to 160.

When I was an au pair in Spain, the mother of the family I worked for used just 2 recipes. She was Austrian, so one of course was Sachertorte, the other one was an apple cake with hazelnuts. I copied the recipes and took them with me when I left, but I have never been able to limit myself to 2 or 3 cakes, as I love trying out recipes.

But having a speciality recipe is a sensible idea.

If your cake is dry, it could be that your mixture is to stiff, add a little cool boiled water, the mixture should look like stiff whipped cream, you could be over cooking it, 25 mins on 180 is about right, and remember it will continue to cook for a few minutes when you take it out of the oven.

When you say on the diagonal, do you mean it rise more one side than the other, if so the. I would say your oven isn’t heating evenly, the door seal could need replacing.

If your cake is browning on the top to much, but a baking sheet on the shelf about, this will protect it a little. A fruit cake benefits from a dish of water in the bottom of the oven to create steam, and always line your pans.

Giving away all my trade secrets now !

Because most modern recipes are in metric. So is packaged food eg margarine/butter/meat. I do use both actually -sometimes when using an old recipe it's easier to use imperial. I bet none of your AC and esp no GC use oz and lbs!

My sponge is always ounces to eggs!
8 ozs to 4 eggs, ratio hasn’t changed in years why would I convert to grams just because?

Keren 2 oz is roughly 100 gms so 4-4-4 would be 100-100-100. Plus 2 eggs. A medium egg is roughly 50 gs too. Easy to convert.

Metric is much easier then imperial - no converting into lbs or stones (by dividing by 16 or 14!) , as everything in multiples of 10!

ps use a shallow square tin 9 by 9.

I don't make cakes often these days, but made a choc. brownie last weekend.
That could be an easy one to start because it's meant to be a bit soggy inside. A simpler method too.
Switch on oven. Gas 4.
Melt the chocolate and butter (or marge), I use the microwave for that. When cool add the eggs.
Mix the dry ingredients and add to chocolate etc.
Pour into lined tin and bake for about 30 minutes.
Several recipes on the internet, mostly same quantities.

PolyPerkins I use both metric & Imperial measures not a mixture of the two in the same recipe.

I do still think predominantly in Imperial, I'm 63

All this talk of baking cakes is "getting my taste buds tingling". I can't remember when I last baked a cake, widowed & a Diabetic, it doesn't seem worth it

Yes, I was taught 4 - 4 - 4 and two eggs until a friend said that she always weighed the eggs in their shells - sometimes two eggs can weigh 5 or more ounces (or equivalent in grams).
So two large eggs will make a slightly larger cake.

Make sure the oven is nice and hot before you put the cake in, and that you have the right tins and they are properly lined.
Don’t spend too long combining the ingredients. Use a small hand held-mixer, then dollop the mixture into the tins and flatten slightly.
Check after about fifteen minutes for a Victoria sponge, and insert a sharp knife. If any mixture sticks to the knife on removal, give it another five minutes.
Good luck and enjoy.