Cake raw in the middle

Heat has to get to the middle, and cake is a poor conductor

Cake batter conducts heat badly. The outside reaches oven temperature quickly and sets; the centre warms slowly by conduction from the edges inwards.

A hotter oven does not speed this up in a useful way. It sets and browns the outside faster while the centre warms at much the same rate, so the gap between them widens. The result is exactly this fault.

The distance from the edge to the centre is therefore the number that matters. A deep tin, a small-diameter tin, or a doubled recipe in the same tin all make the centre further from the heat.

What is causing it

• The oven is hotter than the dial says. Most domestic ovens are out by twenty degrees or more, and a fan oven runs hotter still.
• Too deep a tin. A recipe for two sandwich tins baked as one deep cake needs a lower temperature and much longer.
• Opened too early. The temperature drops sharply and the centre, which had not yet set, sinks and stays wet.
• Too much raising agent. The cake rises fast, sets high, then collapses in the middle before the centre has cooked.
• Too much liquid or fruit. Heavy wet additions sink and hold moisture at the base.
• Baked on too high a shelf, close to the top element, which browns the surface before the middle is anywhere near done.

Fixing it, now and next time

1. If it is still in the oven: cover the top loosely with foil and drop the temperature. Give it considerably longer and test with a skewer.
2. If it is out and cooled: it cannot be re-baked successfully — the outside will dry long before the middle cooks.
3. Salvage it as a trifle, a cake-and-custard pudding, or by cutting out the cooked outer ring and using that.
4. Next time, check the oven with a thermometer before blaming the recipe.
5. Drop the temperature and extend the time for any deep or large cake. Slower and lower is nearly always the answer.
6. Do not open the oven for the first two thirds of the bake.
7. Test with a skewer in the centre, not near the edge, and look for a few moist crumbs rather than wet batter.

Tin and temperature

Deeper tin

Lower temperature and longer time. The heat has further to travel.

Larger diameter, same depth

Similar temperature, slightly less time. The centre is not much further from the top and bottom.

Loaf tin

Long and deep, and one of the commonest shapes for this fault. Drop the temperature.

Fan oven

Runs hotter and dries faster. Reduce the stated temperature by roughly twenty degrees.

Dark or non-stick tins

Absorb more heat and brown the outside faster. Drop the temperature slightly.

Common questions