Why do my cakes get flat and dark brown in the corners?!?!
Answers: Ughh. Please help!! I'm not over-cooking it either.
Everyone's oven temp is not exact. Your oven is running high. If the recipe calls to bake it at 350, bake it at 325. Mine runs hot too! One other thing you can do it to take an old towel, cut it into strips. Soak the strips in water and wrap them around the pan and pin. This will help keep the edges cooler and they will bake slower... I think dropping the temp is easier and not as time consuming as the towel wrap. But either will work...
I agree with the above answer, oven temp is too hot. Just lower the temp a bit, even if u have to cook longer its better because too high isn't good.
only bake till when you touch the center of the cake, a finger print is NOT left. If it bounces right back, its done. Always check baked stuff at least 3/4 the way through the time, no matter what the recipe says. I had an oven that pretty much did what it wanted to and I had to learn to check, and watch. Also, check you recipe or mix. If oven temp is the issue, your cake should be humped up in the middle and maybe even cracked from rising too fast. Or perhaps timer is off.
yes oven is hot but what I am going to suggest is.....on baking a new recipe allways check before the suggested time because all recipes are approximately timed depending on oven as you know by now from previous answers some cook hotter even faster gas cooks faster then electric..different levels on ovens now when I say this i mean heat rises so the top rack is allways hotter and cooks faster then the bottom rack...another thing you wonder why your cakes are flat the reason is....you should allways not open open oven door to much maybe once when you think its ready if you have a light in oven this is allways good to look first sponges is a prime example never untill ready all they will flop....tell me is the cake heavy as well if it is it could be flour measurement allways try to measure everything untill your experienced....but dont worry experiment make mistakes and learn but dont ever give up....good luck cheer up you will be fine..another point a cake is allways cooked when the cake comes away from the sides of tin and I always turn my tins also to give an even colour.....hope I have helped
In a square pan the batter in the corners recieves more heat because that batter has 2 sides exposed to heat, rather than 1 as on the side and none in the center. That's why I rarely bake a cake in a square pan. A lower oven temp can help. Another answerer's suggestion to use cloth strips soaked in water works very well. Good kitchen supplies stores will have a commercial version available. They're called "cake strips". They are made from 1 or 2 layers of a heat resistant material w/ a cotton core. You soak them w/ water by running cold water over them or by immersion. They usually come 2 to a package. Each strip is about 2 1/2 ft. long and a little over an inch wide. They protect the outer edges of the cake from heat. This will allow the edges of the cake to rise almost as high as the center rises. Plus you have a thinner crust on the edges of the cake. They're not very expensive and they last a long time - mine are more than 20 yo. I teach cooking classses for the Extension Service. My co-instructors and I hear the complaint you've made very frequently. We've found that most people who believe they are not over baking the cake actually are over baking the cake. If you bake the cake until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean or w/ dry crumbs, you have over baked the cake. The cake should be removed from the oven as soon as there is no longer wet batter on the toothpick. There will be wet crumbs on the toothpick.
If you make your own cake-strips, use 100% cotton. Make them 4-6 layers thick. Remember that a 9" square pan has a circumference of 36", so you'll have to make your strip 37-38" long. A 9" round pan has a circumference of about 28 3/8".
Happy Baking