Top surface shrinked after cooling
Hi all,
After baking a smooth dome was formed on top. But after cooling the top surface shrink as shown on photo.
The cake is very soft with nice texture.
Ingredients:
I)
60g butter, melted
80g cake flour (plus 1-1/2 tsp baking powder. Sift)
80ml skim milk
1 egg + 5 egg yolks
II)
5 egg whites
75g sugar
pinch of salt
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
Direction
1. Preheat oven at 170 deg C for 15 mins.
2. Beat 1 egg + 5 yolks until creamy with pale yellow colour & fluffy on high speed for a few minutes or until it double its original volume. Add in flour & alternate it with milk. Add in melted butter and mix well. Set aside.
3. Beat egg whites on high speed until white & frothy for about 40 sec – 1 min. Add in salt, cream of tartar and sugar, a bit at a time. Beat for about 2 mins until it's stiff & thick foamy. Once mixture clings & does not drip, it is ready.
4. Fold 1/3 whites with egg yolk batter with a spatula till well combined. Take another 1/3 egg whites, repeat the same step. And same for the last 1/3 egg white.
5. Pour batter into fully lined baking pan. Give the pan a few good shakes to remove air.
6. Bake a preheated oven 170 deg C for 10mins, then reduce heat to 150 deg C for another 20 min and done tested with cake tester.
8. Place the cake on a wire rack to cool completely, remove baking paper.
Please advice how to fix the problem. Thanks
Regards
satimis
You have made a baked custard, or a cake, but certainly not a loaf of bread! There is not enough gluten to hold the shape. Cake flour has very little gluten. Test doneness of bread with a thermometer 195°+ F (91°+C).
Ford
No, not loaf. I baked the sponge cake in an electric oven not in a bread machine.
Cake flour used;
http://www.francine.com/produit-francine/farine-a-gateaux-francine
Already tested doneness with a tester before moving the cake out from the oven
satimis
Hi,
I added 1/2 tsp cream of tartar while beating the egg white. I'll reduce its quantity to 1/4 tsp in next round.
satimis
of some sorts. bit like the chiffon cake but with melted butter.
It's possible that making it in a deep tin like you have will always create a bit of a sink, however its hard to tell. The baking temperatures seem a little low to me - its possible marginally underbaked - I'd probably cook it a little hotter, but not much.
Did the original recipe specify the tin to bake it in?
-Gordon
Hi Gordon,
Thanks
I'll increase the temp to 180 deg C in next round.
The original receipt instructed "Pour batter into fully lined baking pan". I baked the sponge cake in a metal baking pan coated.
satimis
with cakes. I have seen it many times in my kitchen. Cake comes out of the oven looking great, then cools into a somewhat collapsed configuration. I think that is why there is frosting….it hides a multitude of cake problems.
Hi,
I saw cakes sold in bakery without frosting with nice top, a small dome. I wonder how they were made?
satimis
try using one with a hole in the middle, a straight sided tube pan. If a one piece mould, line only the bottom and not the sides and careful taking it out of the oven, be gentle and let it cool completely upside down and on a high cooling rack. Suspended if need be on can edges Don't grease the sides of the pan and let it stick good and tight when it bakes. When completely cool, use a long thin knife to cut between the mould and the cake to release.
Another possible problem, the flour might have too much gluten and is too elastic so as it cools, it pulls itself together and shrinks drastically. The solution here is to substitute part of the flour for starch like potato, rice, or corn starch. With AP white sifted wheat, start subbing with 30% of total flour. Sift the starch and flour together to blend well before adding moisture.
Just a thought, check to see if the cake flour is "self rising" to make sure there isn't too much BP in the recipe. All those eggs makes me wonder why there is so much Baking Powder in the recipe, it could rise on eggs alone.
Hi,
Thanks for your advice.
I'll try to get a round baking pan with hole in the center as shown on attached photo.
The cake flour used by me:
Farine à Gâteaux Francine
Francine cake flour
http://www.francine.com/produit-francine/farine-a-gateaux-francine
Composition
Farine de blé, poudre à lever 2,1% :
Wheat flour consists 2.1% baking powder
diphosphates - carbonates de sodium (blé).
diphosphates - sodium carbonate
I can replace the cake flour with all purpose/plain white flour. Any comment?
Thanks
satimis
Has solved the mystery, as usual. The double dose of leavening caused the sinking of the cake. Your plan to change flours should make it right. Just in case, keep a frosting recipe nearby. : ) Happy cake baking!
and don't add any baking powder.
Try again in the same form but get the bottom of the pan closer to the heat source and stick to the lower temps to get all sides browned evenly. Switching out the pan for a darker one might also help.
150°C is common for chocolate cakes as chocolate burns easily. Shiny pans need longer at that temp and do their work to keep the crust light coloured. A foil tent is also an option if the exposed cake browns too quickly.
When you say the the cake "shrank," did you mean that the dome on top deflated, or that the whole thing slid down the sides of the pan?
I think Mini Oven is dead-on with her assessments for both problems. If the dome is deflating, it sounds like an ingredient problem. If the cake is sliding down the sides of the pan it's because of the pan coating (I assume it's some type of fat).
An old wives' tale that my mom always used to recite when I watched her bake was that angelfood pans should never be greased or they would be ruined forever. For the same reason that your egg whites are whipped separately from the yolks - any fat (which the yolks and butter contain) that comes near the egg whites during the whipping ruins the whites' ability to maintain the foam structure and it rapidly falls apart. The cream of tartar is an acid that helps to strengthen the egg foam, but it can only do so much. The rest of the structural support comes from the tiny bit of flour and the pan itself. Mini is right, it has to "stick tight" to the pan in order maintain it's structure - that's why angelfood cakes always look so rough on the outside. If they're done right they always have to be cut from the pan after cooling. Your sponge cake recipe is very similar to angelfood, except that angelfood contains no fat at all, which is why they get very tall indeed; often rising out the top of a 8" or 10" tube pan. The baking paper lining of the pan should allow you to remove the cake without having the rough cut surface appearance.
Funny thing about old wives... their "tales" usually contain more than a bit of truth, and I ended up owing my mom a new angelfood pan after I made a sticky monkey bread in hers and greased the heck out of it. She swore her cakes never came out right after that.
Hi all,
Finally I got it done baking a nice sponge cake with nice texture but without leavening agent, such as baking powder, sodium bicarbonate, etc. Steps are as following;
Ingredients
3 eggs
63 gram all purpose flour
100 g granulated sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla
Direction
1. Mix the eggs – 20 sec (medium speed)
2. Whisk the eggs plus sugar – 5 min (high speed)
3. then add salt and vanilla and mix them – 10 sec (high speed)
4. Sieve the flour into a dish
5. Mix the batter at high speed and slowly pouring in the flour – 30~40 sec
6. Line the bottom of a baking pan with parchment paper. Make sure the wall of the pan being absolutely clean and free from oil/grease.
7. Pour the batter into the baking pan.
8. baking 25 min at 180 deg C
9. Remove the cake from oven and cool it on a wire-net for 10 min
The trick is beating the eggs with the right machine, a Stand Mixer, which was purchased recently. It is NOT necessary beating egg white and egg yolk separately. Flour can be added while beating eggs.
Regards
satimis