What did I do wrong? My cake was gooey instead of cakey.

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Shaheen

Senior Cook
Joined
Apr 24, 2006
Messages
338
Location
Bombay, India
I found this recipe for a chocloate chip cake in a magazine. The ingredients are
200 grams flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2teaspoon baking soda
140 grams sugar
110 ml oil or melted butter
1 cup condensed milk
100 grams chocolate chips

sifted the dry ingredients together
mixed sugar, melted butter and condensed milk. at this stage i added an egg, though not mentioned.
mixed in t he dry stuff and then folded in the chocolate chips
preheated oven at 180 degrees celcius. then i put the mixture into a 9 inch square tin.
the book said it would take 30 mins, but even after 20 mins the toothpick came out all sticky whereas the top was browned.
to prevent further browning i covered the tin with a foil till it was completly baked (total time 45 mins as compared to what was mentiond, i.e. 30 mins)

when the cake was in the oven it looked nice and well risen in the but after i removed it sank in the centre whereas the sides were perfect and tall..

finally the texture was gooey instead of cakey.

i liked the taste though :LOL:
I don't know what I did wrong. Can somebody please help me?:(
 
It could be just a bad recipe. It could be a missing ingredient. I don't think there is much way to tell unfortunately.
 
Sounds like the oven temperature was too hot, causing the top to brown and the inside uncooked. Try lowering the temperature if you try this recipe again.
 
Seems to me, too much liquid (1cup of condenced milk!?) with too little solidifying agent (no eggs?). You went in a right direction, IMO, to add an egg, but I would think more (about 3) and less condenced milk, or partially substituting with powdered milk may help, though it is hard to tell exactly how much...
 
What do I do to make the cake rise well? Not just for this cake, its happened once or twice. How do I make sure it never happens? (i've tested my baking powder before putting it in the cake, so thats not the problem I'm guessing)
 
I often mix AP flour with either corn or potato starch (anywhere from 3/4-1/4, to half/half, if you want it really fluffy). This contributes to the rising power, usually.
 
I'm with urmaniac on the too much liquid thing. 200g of flour and 140g of sugar is not much for one full cup of condensed milk. I'm thinking you could up the flour a bit and it would solve the issue. BTW, does it bug you a bit when recipes bounce between metric and imperial? I wish they would just stick to one when they print them.
 
Shaheen said:
I found this recipe for a chocloate chip cake in a magazine. The ingredients are
200 grams flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2teaspoon baking soda
140 grams sugar
110 ml oil or melted butter
1 cup condensed milk
100 grams chocolate chips

sifted the dry ingredients together
mixed sugar, melted butter and condensed milk. at this stage i added an egg, though not mentioned.
mixed in t he dry stuff and then folded in the chocolate chips
preheated oven at 180 degrees celcius. then i put the mixture into a 9 inch square tin.
the book said it would take 30 mins, but even after 20 mins the toothpick came out all sticky whereas the top was browned.
to prevent further browning i covered the tin with a foil till it was completly baked (total time 45 mins as compared to what was mentiond, i.e. 30 mins)

when the cake was in the oven it looked nice and well risen in the but after i removed it sank in the centre whereas the sides were perfect and tall..

finally the texture was gooey instead of cakey.

i liked the taste though :LOL:
I don't know what I did wrong. Can somebody please help me?:(

The problem might be adding the egg, since you mentioned the recipe did not call for it.

What do I do to make the cake rise well? Not just for this cake, its happened once or twice. How do I make sure it never happens? (i've tested my baking powder before putting it in the cake, so thats not the problem I'm guessing)


Beating the egg(s) may have something to do with it not rising. Think you want to incorporate air -- make it airy and light. If you're beating whites separately, for let's say a souffle, make sure there is no yolk in the whites, beaters are clean, eggs are at room temp. Don't overbeat the whites - I think this causes them to break. They should be glossy. If recipe says to fold in the ingreds (dry & wet), do it gently, but make sure everything is combined thoroughly so it will bake evenly. Hope that helps.
 
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The recipe sounds more like a 'chocolate chip cookie bar' to me, than a true 'cake'. Maybe it was supposed to be gooey? Where did the recipe come from?
 
I have a way to get moisture out of a cake which I consider the secret part of my recepie and so don't include in my recepies. It is very simple.
When the cake is done I leave it out until the cake pan is real cool. Then leaving it uncovered I put the Chocolate Cake (you can use any kind)
in the refrigerator on the botton shelf for a day or two. The refrigerator pulls moisture out of any open foods in it. Thus it removes moisture from my cake since it is uncovered.. Never leave anything uncovered in refrigerator unless you want the refrigeator to remove moisture from it.
I then remove the cake from the refrigerator and cover with the iceing and return it uncovered to the bottom shelf of my refrigerator and leave it another day or two d epending on how I want it. I go by site~texture . It takes 2 to 4 days to remove moisture from cake this way so I usually make my Chocolate Fudge Cake a week before I need to serve and share it. It
is also one of the reasons my recepie is hard to duplicate.
If you leave a Chocolate Fudge Cake in the refrigerator uncovered too long it may come out like a Brownie, instead of a Chocolate Fudge Cake with Iceing, etc....

For my Trekken Double Chocolate Fudge Cake RECEPIE IN CAPITAL LETTERS, and the JOURNAL OF THE USSChocolattaa, how she turned into Chocolate and what happened to her go ~=O
http://community.webtv.net/Timeloyd/USSCHOCOLATTAA

Timeloyd Rich

Time is an illusion. Lunch time doubly so.
Ford Prefect ~ The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy
 
Shaheen, It's difficult to look at recipe in grams and comment. As others indicated too much liquid, no rising or binding agent, oven temperature could all be contributing to it's lack of texture.

Here is a simple recipe that you can use. Since it's in cup it's hopefully easy to follow. If you don't have a measuring cup ensure you use a teacup and use that consistently to measure everything so you don't throw the measurement off.

1 cup flour
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup cocoa (unsweetened) - If you use sweetened reduce the sugar to 1.5 cups
2 tsp. baking soda
1 cup hot coffee (instant is fine, mix 1 tbsp of crystals in 1 cup of hot water)
3 eggs
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup oil
1 cup milk

Add all the ingredients to a bowl and mix it with a hand mixer until it's all incorporated. Divide the mixture into 2 8 inch round pans (Note-Changing size of the baking pan will affect the end result so try to find something close in size. A bit larger or slightly smaller may be fine but anything too large or small will affect the end result).

Bake at 350 degree Farenheit or 176.7 degree celcius for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. You will get two round cakes that are really good.
 
this recipe is nowhere near a cake in the usual sense. it sounds like something concocted by a condensed milk company's recipe staff, and being unable to come up with a better name, they called it a cake. as marmalady mentioned, it sounds more like a bar cookie(?) or an attempt at an eggless brownie.

most usually, a gooey cake center is caused by a too-high oven temp, which will start burning the top before the heat reaches the center. however 180 celsius is absolutely standard, so unless your oven thermostat is goofy (which is a possibility), that's not the likely cause.

the next likely cause would be using a smaller diameter pan than called for, thereby increasing the depth of the batter, with results similar to the above. 9" x 9" sounds about right though.

another possiblity outside of the recipe, is the kind of oven you're using. if you're using a convection oven by any chance, you should turn off the fan if possible, or decrease the temperature by between 10 20 degrees centigrade, (depending on your oven) if you can't.

looking at the recipe, all i can honestly say is that it looks lame, if you're expectling a "cake". not only the flour/ condensed milk ratio, but the amount of oil too. plus, the condensed milk already being rather sweet, i'd say the amount of sugar is is a bit high. sugar contributes not only to sweetness, but to moisture also. on top of that, i can't figure out why someone put baking soda in that recipe. there's nothing acidic in the recipe for the baking soda to react with. maybe it's there to prevent heartburn when it makes its way into your tummy.

you could try fooling around with the recipe if you're so inclined. you might try making it without the egg, as according to the recipe. it may be that after it cools, you can put it in your fridge, and it'll be a nice ... something or other. if you want to try to make it more cake-like, increase the amount of flour and sift it well with between 2 - 3 teaspoons of baking powder, no soda. reduce the sugar and the oil a bit also. instead of oil or melted butter, you might also try to cut in the butter with a pastry cutter instead. this might give you something more like a chocolate chip scone or (american) biscuit. (sounds like it might actually work this way) maybe use a little larger pan or reduce the temp. by about 10 degrees ( although they sound like they should be about right.

my honest opinion is that, if you want a cake, this recipe is beyond redemption. unfortunately, a lot of recipes are developed as a product marketing device and, through home and garden type magazines, pushed on women as "time-saving" "quick & easy" recipes by mixing together a lot of comercial products or using by mayonaise instead of and egg and some oil, etc. the results are seldom exceptional (or even good), end up costing more than necessary, and are generally nowhere near as healthy as using a few wholesome ingredients instead.

you also mentioned that you've had gooey cake results before. if you've been following the recipes, you might want to get an oven thermometer and make sure it's not the fault of the oven. good luck.
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