Fruit Cake Sinking
Answer
Dear Noah
FRUIT CAKE SINKING
There are a number of reasons why your fruit cake sunk and was still doughy on the inside. I would need to see the recipe to give precise advice, but these are the general reasons for failures of this nature. A lot depends on which method the recipe uses, from the Creaming, All-in-One, Rubbing-in, Melting and Whisking Methods, amongst others.
Too much raising agent added: check the proportions accurately.
Too much syrup added: take care when measuring it.
Oven temperature too high: use the Baking Oven on 3 and 4 oven Aga cookers, or the Aga Cake Baker in a 2 oven Aga cooker. Alternatively, start with the cake on the grid shelf on the floor of the Roasting Oven with a cold plain shelf above. Once the cake is set and coloured, transfer the hot plain shelf to the middle of the Simmering Oven and transfer the cake onto this for the remainder of the cooking time.
Cake baked too high in the oven: cook lower down.
Mixture too slack before cooking: check that too much liquid hasn`t been added; too little flour; too much sugar (check measurements accurately).
Wrong cake tin size used: square and round tin surface areas vary, affecting the rate at which moisture is driven off during baking. It is important to use the correct shape and size of tin. Recipes that are doubled up similarly can suffer from sinking/uncooked centres if the mass of cake mixture is too dense.
Best Wishes
Richard Maggs
THE AGA COOKERY DOCTOR
Question
Dear Richard I baked a fruit cake and it dropped. (It was still doughy on the inside etc.) What did I do wrong? It was a great dissappointment. Could you help me? Thank you Noah