Pandan Kaya/Layer Cake

In the land of the half-lion, half-fish mutant, there's the half-cake, half-kueh: pandan kaya quake. 

kueh + cake = kuake = quake

Dig?

Using kueh as an icing makes perfect sense when you live in the tropics. There's no need to worry about the icing melting even when there's a heat wave. El Niño? Bring it on! No aircon? No problem!

The cake part of pandan kaya cake is quite straightforward. It's a sponge cake made with the separated egg method. If you follow the recipe and you know how to whisk egg whites to firm peak stage, your cake will be fluffy, moist and fragrant.

If you don't know what the hell firm peak stage is and you need instructions on how to follow instructions, please refer to my posts, Cake FAQ and Cake Dos and Don'ts.

The kaya part of pandan kaya cake is made with pandan juice, as well as pandan paste to boost the colour. There's coconut milk as well, pandan's best friend. These two are real buddies, you know? (Of course you do.) The two combined would make (almost) anything sweet taste good.

Turning pandan leaves into pulp is easy when you use a food processor or blender instead of mortar and pestle. (You knew that, of course.)

How to squeeze the hell outta pulverized pandan leaves, so that you get every drop of juice possible?

The hard way: with your bare hands. The easy way: with a potato ricer. (You know Archimedes' Law of the Lever . . . don't you?)  

Besides coconut milk and pandan juice, there's also butter in cake kaya. The fat is absolutely necessary. It hides the floury taste of hun kwee flour.

Unlike its cousin that's spread on bread, cake kaya is made without eggs. Bread kaya is set with eggs but cake kaya is set with hun kwee flour (a starch made from mung beans) and agar-agar powder.

Hun kwee flour is available at most supermarts if you live where I live. If you're in the western/southern hemisphere, try Asia grocery stores. In the US, Amazon.com can deliver a pack to your doorstep.

Pandan kaya cake may be assembled upside down. IOW, you start with a layer of kaya and finish with a layer of cake on top. After the kaya is set, the cake is flipped right way up.

I prefer to assemble my cake right way up, starting with a layer of cake and finishing with a layer of kaya.

If you do it my way, make sure the kaya isn't too thin when you pour it on the first cake layer. If it's watery, it'll seep underneath the cake. What's the right consistency? Kind of like thick but pourable cream.

Kaya that's too thick is also problematic. If it's not thin enough to flow smoothly, the layers formed won't be even. How do you stop the kaya from becoming too thick?

1) Measure the ingredients accurately. 2) Use a pot that retains heat well. 3) Don't overcook the kaya. 4) Have your cake layers and pan (or cake ring) ready before cooking the kaya.

If you look at the written recipe below, you'll find it's rather long. That's because describing the process in detail requires a lot of words. Well, 1,000 words = 1 picture, right? If you watch the video, the recipe doesn't look too daunting. In fact, if you enjoy baking, it looks exactly like the kind of thing you'd want to do this weekend.

Repeat after me: "Baking is fun, not work! Baking is fun, not work! Baking is . . . ." (I'm sure you knew that.)



Pandan Layer Cake
Singaporean pandan kaya cake has an identical twin in Malaysia called pandan layer cake. How to tell the twins apart? The kaya in the Malaysian cake is like agar-agar/jelly. The Singaporean version, OTOH, is like kueh.

To make pandan layer cake, use 3/4-1 tsp of agar-agar powder instead of 1/2 tsp. More agar-agar powder makes the kaya set quickly, so you must be quick when you're assembling the cake or the kaya layers won't be smooth.

PANDAN KAYA CAKE (班兰咖吔蛋糕) (Recipe for one 20 x 12 cm cake) Cake 10 g castor sugar   45 g egg yolks 50 g corn oil 45 g full-fat milk 8 drops pandan paste, less if your egg yolks aren't as yellow as mine 50 g cake flour 1/4 tsp baking powder 1/16 tsp salt 105 g egg whites 1/8 tsp cream of tartar 40 g castor sugar Kaya 300 g water 1/2 tsp white agar-agar powder 40 g sugar 25 g unsalted butter 40 g pandan juice rinse 50 g young pandan leaves; cut 5-6 cm long; grind in food processor with 30 g water till fine; press with potato ricer, in 2 batches, to yield 40 g pandan juice; if you have less/more, increase/decrease the 300 g water 1/8 tsp salt 120 g pure coconut milk, freshly squeezed 35 g white hun kwee flour 5 drops pandan paste 1 big drop egg yellow food colour 1. To make cake, trim 5 mm thick corrugated cardboard to fit sides of 23 x 15 cm cake pan. Wrap each piece of cardboard in aluminium foil, shining side facing out. Line bottom of 20 x 12 x 7.5 cm cake pan with 2 layers of parchment paper. 2. Preheat oven to 160°C. Measure ingredients for cake as detailed above. 3. Whisk 10 g castor sugar with egg yolks till dissolved. Add corn oil. Whisk till just combined. Add milk. Whisk till just thoroughly mixed. Add pandan paste, 6-8 drops, to make yolk mixture's colour look like Golden Delicious apples'. Mix thoroughly.  Sift cake flour and baking powder into mixture. Add salt. Whisk till just thoroughly mixed. 4. Separately whisk egg whites till frothy. Add cream of tartar. Whisk till thick foam forms. Gradually add 40 g castor sugar whilst still whisking. Continue to whisk till firm peak stage. 5. Thoroughly whisk yolk mixture. Add egg whites in 3 batches. Mix with whisk till almost even after each addition. Scrape down and fold with spatula till just evenly mixed, banging mixing bowl against worktop 2-3 times. 6. Pour batter into 20 x 12 x 7.5 cm cake pan, slowly and from about 30 cm high. Jiggle pan till batter is level, tapping pan against worktop 2-3 times. 7. Place cake pan holding batter in 23 x 15 cm cake pan. Tuck cardboard between 2 pans. Bake in bottom of oven till middle of cake doesn't squish when pressed gently, 40-45 minutes. 8. Remove pans from oven. Remove cardboard and outer pan. Drop pan holding cake from about 30 cm high, once. Invert pan onto wire rack. Leave till just cool. Unmould cake and remove parchment paper. 9 Slice cake horizontally with serrated knife into 3 layers. 10. Wash and dry cake pan. Line pan with aluminium foil with  some overhang. 11. To make kaya, place water in a small pot that retains heat well. Sprinkle agar-agar powder into water. Add sugar, unsalted butter, pandan juice and salt. Set aside for 30 minutes or longer. 12. Place coconut milk in a bowl. Add hun kwee flour. Stir thoroughly. Refrigerate till ready to use. 13. After cutting cake and prepping cake pan as detailed above, heat and stir agar-agar mixture till agar-agar powder dissolves. (Mixture is now very hot but not boiling.) Turn off heat. Add coconut milk mixture. Stir thoroughly. Add 5 drops pandan paste and 1 big drop egg yellow food colour. Stir thoroughly. 14. Turn on heat to medium-low. Cook and stir agar-agar mixture till thick enough to coat sides of pot thinly. Turn off heat. Stir till residual heat dissipates. (Mixture should now be thick enough to coat sides of pot thickly but thin enough to flow smoothly.) 15. To assemble cake, place what was top part of cake in cake pan, cut side up. Pour 140 g kaya into pan. Tilt pan from side to side and swirl kaya to form even layer. Wait till kaya layer thickens slightly, about 60 seconds (less if it's cold where you are). Place what was middle part of cake on kaya layer. Make kaya layer as before. Wait 30 seconds or so. Top with what was bottom part of cake, cut side up. Make kaya layer as before. 16. Leave assembled cake on wire rack to cool down. Refrigerate, covered, till ready to serve and kaya is firm. 17. To serve, unmould cake and trim 1 cm from all edges. Transfer to serving plate. Leave till cake is at room temperature, covered. Cut and serve.

Banana Chiffon Cake (香蕉戚风蛋糕)

If you like your banana cake very fluffy and very "banana-y", you must try my version. Other recipes may be as fluffy but not as banana-y, or as banana-y but not as fluffy.

Making banana cake more banana-y is easy. I simply put loads of very ripe bananas in it.

Most recipes for banana cake have about 1 part banana to 1 part flour. Some may go up to 2:1. Mine has 175 g bananas to 70 g flour, so the ratio is 2.5:1.

When banana cake has a lot of bananas, it becomes dense and wet. IOW, it turns into banana bread. That's a good thing if you like heavy and squat banana bread but I don't.

How do I stop banana cake from turning into banana bread?

By making the cake rise, so it's not dense. And making the cake dry out, so it's not too wet.

To help the cake rise well, my recipe has a fair bit of baking soda and baking powder. Egg whites whisked till firm peak stage also lend a hand. A chiffon pan helps too because the funnel makes the batter heat up evenly.

I use a fairly low temperature, 160°C. If the temperature is higher, the inside of the cake would still be wet when the top is brown. Mashed bananas dry out slowly, so the cake must be baked longer, at a lowish temperature. If the cake is too wet when it's removed from the oven, it'll shrink as it cools down or after it's unmoulded.

Besides the baking time and temperature, putting less wet ingredients in the cake also helps make the cake less wet. There's no water or milk in the recipe, and there's only a small amount of oil.

A fluffy cake is fluffy because its structure is weak. To stop the structure from collapsing when it's at its weakest – just after the cake is removed from the oven –  it must cling to the sides and bottom of the cake pan. The pan, therefore, mustn't be non-stick and it must be inverted once it's removed from the oven. A funnel in the middle gives the cake more surface area to cling to.

Banana cake is best served without frosting, so there's nothing to mask the flavour of the bananas.

Are you ready to eat the most fluffy and most banana-y ever banana cake? Hey, you have to bake it first.

BANANA CHIFFON CAKE (香蕉戚风蛋糕) (Recipe for one 18 x 8 cm cake) 2-3 very ripe bananas, peel to yield 175 g 60 g egg yolks 15 g castor sugar 40 g corn oil 70 g cake flour 1⁄4 tsp baking powder 1⁄2 tsp baking soda 1⁄8 tsp salt 140 g egg whites 1⁄16 tsp cream of tartar 50 g castor sugar Preheat oven to 160°C. Measure and prep ingredients as detailed above. Blend 175 g bananas, egg yolks, corn oil and 15 g castor sugar till smooth and thoroughly incorporated. Sift cake flour, baking soda and baking powder into mixture. Add salt. Mix with whisk till just even. Separately whisk egg whites till frothy. Add cream of tartar. Whisk till egg whites form thick foam. Gradually add 50 g castor sugar, still whisking. Continue to whisk till egg whites reach firm peak stage. Add egg whites to yolk mixture in 3 batches. Mix with whisk till almost even after each batch. Scrape down and fold with spatula till just evenly mixed, banging mixing bowl against worktop 2-3 times. Pour batter into 18 x 8 cm 2-piece chiffon pan that's not non-stick, rotating pan as you pour so that batter is spread evenly. Jiggle pan till batter is level. Bake in bottom of oven for about 1 hour, till cake is well browned and, when pressed lightly, springs back and squishes softly. (Loud squishing means the cake is still too wet.) Remove cake from oven. Invert onto something narrow and tall, e.g. jam jar or inverted glass. Leave till cool. Cut cake out of pan. Serve.

Bamboo Charcoal Cake (竹碳蛋糕)

Black is mysterious. Black is sophisticated. Black is . . . sexy.

What makes my cake black? It's bamboo charcoal that's been pulverized into a very, very fine powder.

You can see what my charcoal cake looks like but you can't taste it. Let me taste it for you.

Chomp, chomp, chomp . . . .

Hey, charcoal cake tastes like regular cake! It's just like vanilla cake except for the colour.

Chomp, chomp . . . zzzzz . . . .

Did you know charcoal powder makes you sleepy?

I didn't the first time I ate charcoal cake. I had a (small) piece late in the afternoon, then another (small) piece after dinner. That night, I struggled to stay awake after 10 pm and had to crawl into bed an hour later. I don't usually retire till well after midnight.

Besides treating insomnia, charcoal powder is a good antidote. It inactivates poisons by binding with the toxins.

Did you hear about the woman who, after taking some poison to kill herself, decided to eat some charcoal cake?

Said woman figured she could eat all the cake she wanted since she was about to die. So she ate and ate and ate . . . not realizing she was eating an antidote to the poison.

Guess what? Yup, she didn't die because she ate too much cake. The moral of the story is: Good things happen to those who eat lots of cake.

OK, I just totally made that up. If you were poisoned, you'd need loads of charcoal powder, loads more than there would be in a cake or two.

Treating a gassy stomach, OTOH, doesn't need much. Inhale a big slice of charcoal cake and the excess gas in your tummy would be gone. Isn't that nice? You can still eat cake when your tummy feels bloated!

If you've just had a French manicure, remember to wear gloves when you're handling charcoal powder. OTOH, if your black varnish is peeling around the edges, you could rub some charcoal powder on your nails.

Run out of eyeliner? Hey, what do you think Cleopatra used? Maybe not bamboo charcoal but it was definitely charcoal of some sort around her eyes, on her brows, and as a teeth whitener.

Charcoal powder has so many uses. Isn't it wonderful?

Baking good charcoal cake is easy when you have my tried and tested recipe. Frosting the cake isn't difficult either. Remember less is more or the cake's unusual colour wouldn't stand out. A few blackberries or black raspberries would add a nice accent. Anything else would spoil the minimalist look . . . .

Hey, I just had a brainwave! I'm gonna serve charcoal cake at my funeral . . . well, I won't be there . . . I mean I will be there but . . . . I guess I'll have to leave instructions. There must be a cake for every important occasion, right?


 

BAMBOO CHARCOAL CAKE (竹碳蛋糕) (Recipe for one 20 x 12 cm cake) 1 tsp bamboo charcoal powder 45 g full-fat milk add to charcoal powder; stir thoroughly 10 g castor sugar 45 g egg yolks 35 g corn oil, plus extra for greasing 1/2 tsp vanilla extract 45 g cake flour 1/4 tsp baking powder 1/16 tsp salt 105 g egg whites 1/16 tsp cream of tartar 35 g castor sugar 150 g whipped cream Trim 5 mm thick corrugated cardboard to fit sides of 23 x 15 cm cake pan. Wrap each piece of cardboard in aluminium foil, shining side facing out.  Line bottom of 20 x 12 x 7.5 cm cake pan with 2 layers of parchment paper. Lightly grease top layer with oil. Preheat oven to 160°C. Measure and prep ingredients as detailed above. Whisk 10 g castor sugar with egg yolks till dissolved. Add corn oil. Whisk till just combined. Add charcoal milk and vanilla extract. Whisk till just thoroughly mixed. Sift cake flour and baking powder into mixture. Add salt. Whisk till just thoroughly mixed. Separately whisk egg whites till frothy. Add cream of tartar. Whisk till thick foam forms. Gradually add 35 g castor sugar whilst still whisking. Continue to whisk till firm peak stage. Thoroughly whisk yolk mixture, scraping bottom of bowl. Add half of egg whites. Mix with whisk till almost even. Add remaining egg whites. Mix with whisk till almost even. Scrape down and fold with spatula till just evenly mixed, banging mixing bowl against worktop 2-3 times. Pour batter into 20 x 12 x 7.5 cm cake pan, slowly and from about 30 cm high. Jiggle pan and tap lightly against worktop till batter is level. Place in bigger cake pan. Tuck cardboard between 2 pans. Bake in bottom of oven till cake doesn't make squishing sound when gently pressed around the middle, 50-55 minutes. Remove pans from oven. Set aside outer pan and cardboard. Drop pan holding cake from about 30 cm high, twice. Invert pan onto wire rack. Leave till just cool. As soon as cake is cool, slide knife along sides of pan. Unmould cake. Remove parchment paper. To frost cake, slice cake horizontally into 3 equal pieces. Invert what was top of cake so that cut side faces up. Spread evenly with whipped cream, about 2 mm thick. Top with what was middle of cake. Spread whipped cream as before. Place what was bottom of cake on cream, cut side down. Spread whipped cream as before. Chill till cream is firm. Trim 1 cm from edges. (Trimmings are, of course, perfectly edible.) Refrigerate till ready to serve.

Matcha Cake

Green tea powder, aka matcha and maccha, is the soul of green tea cake. If you want to make good green tea cake, you have to use good quality green tea powder.

GTP has three enemies: heat, light and oxygen. The colour and flavour deteriorate very quickly unless the tea is kept in the cold, in the dark, away from oxygen.

Good matcha is sold in an airtight and  lightproof metal container, and it comes with an oxygen absorber. It should be used as soon and as quickly as possible. And it should be refrigerated, even when it's still sealed.

Lousy matcha, OTOH, sits in a see-through plastic container that's sealed but not really airtight. It's essentially hay with artificial colouring and flavouring. It's good if you're baking a cake for your pet rabbit.

To make green tea cake, just take whatever cake recipe you like and substitute a bit of the flour with matcha. Right?

Yes, of course you can do that. In fact, a lot of people do. But matcha and wheat flour are two entirely different things. The former consists of leaves/fibre; the latter consists of protein and starch. Compared to flour, ground up leaves absorb more water but less fat. Unless you adjust the recipe, a cake made with green tea powder would be less fluffy and more oily than one made without.

Besides the absorbancy, there're two more differences between matcha and flour.

Does matcha taste like flour? Of course it doesn't. Green tea powder is slightly bitter but flour isn't. It makes the cake less sweet.

Does matcha brown like flour? Nope, it doesn't. Wet leaves don't brown, so green tea powder makes the cake brown slower unless you add more sugar or increase the oven temperature.

Most cake recipes need a wee bit of salt. You shouldn't be able to taste the salt at all. It's there to round off the sweetness. Green tea cake, however, doesn't need any salt because matcha does the "rounding off". If there's salt, you'd be able to taste it.

The flavour of green tea powder is very delicate. If there's baking soda/powder in the recipe, the delicate flavour would be compromised. Hence, green tea cake should be made without any baking soda/powder.

I don't like green tea cake that's dense, salty, oily, not sweet, not brown and not "matcha-ish". Do you?

My green tea cake is made with a recipe that's dedicated to making green tea cake that's soft, fluffy, and subtly fragrant with the scent of green tea powder. It's not some vanilla cake with the vanilla yanked out and matcha bunged in.

If you want to try my recipe, be warned that the cake cracks even with cardboard insulation to help it rise evenly. The cracks close up nicely as the cake cools down but you'd still see a few lines. Here's what the cake looks like hot from the oven and after cooling down:
After baking my way through four bottles of GTP, I'm now happy with my recipe. I hope you like it too.

GREEN TEA (MATCHA) CAKE (抹茶蛋糕) (Recipe for one 20 x 12 cm cake) Cake 10 g castor sugar 60 g egg yolks 30 g corn oil 5 g green tea powder add 20 g boiling water; mix till smooth; add 30 g room temperature water; mix thoroughly; set aside to cool down 40 g cake flour 105 g egg whites 1/16 tsp cream of tartar 45 g castor sugar Whipped cream 200 g dairy cream, ≈35% fat, thoroughly chilled 1 tsp green tea powder 1. To make cake, trim 5 mm thick corrugated cardboard to fit sides of 23 x 15 cm cake pan. Wrap each piece of cardboard in aluminium foil, shining side facing out. Line bottom of 20 x 12 x 7.5 cm cake pan with 2 layers of parchment paper. 2. Preheat oven to 160°C. Measure ingredients for cake and prepare green tea as detailed above. 3. Whisk 10 g castor sugar with egg yolks till dissolved. Add corn oil. Whisk till just combined. Add green tea. Whisk will just thoroughly mixed. Sift cake flour into mixture. Whisk till just thoroughly mixed but small lumps are still visible.  4. Separately whisk egg whites till frothy. Add cream of tartar. Whisk till thick foam forms. Gradually add 45 g castor sugar whilst still whisking. Continue to whisk till firm peak stage. 5. Thoroughly whisk yolk mixture, which should be smooth now. Add half of egg whites. Mix with whisk till almost even. Add remaining egg whites. Mix with whisk till almost even. Scrape down and fold with spatula till just evenly mixed, banging mixing bowl against worktop 2-3 times. 6. Pour batter into 20 x 12 x 7.5 cm cake pan, slowly and from about 30 cm high. Jiggle pan till batter is level. 7. Place cake pan holding batter in 23 x 15 cm cake pan. Tuck cardboard between 2 pans. Bake till middle of cake doesn't make squishing sound when pressed gently, about 55 minutes. 8. Remove pans from oven. Remove cardboard and outer pan. Drop pan holding cake from about 30 cm high, 2-3 times. Invert pan onto wire rack. Leave till just cool. 9. As soon as cake is cool, slide knife along sides of pan. Unmould cake. Discard both layers of parchment paper. 10. To make whipped cream, whisk cream till just thick enough to hold its shape. Add green tea powder. Whisk till evenly mixed and cream is dead stiff. 11. To assemble, cut cake horizontally with serrated knife or cake slicer into 2 equal halves. Set aside bottom half of cake. Invert top half so that cut side faces up. Spread with half of whipped cream. Top with remaining half of cake, cut side down. Spread with remaining whipped cream. Smooth top. Trim about 1 cm from 4 edges. 12. Transfer cake to serving plate. Refrigerate till ready to serve. Enjoy trimmings whilst waiting.

Orange Sponge Cupcakes (香橙海棉杯子蛋糕)

Hark! Do you hear the sound of thundering hooves?

The Year of the Horse is coming!

Happy Chinese New Year! 祝大家大吉大利!

My last recipe in the Year of the Snake, that's slithering away real fast, is orange sponge cupcakes. To bake these little cakes, please follow the recipe. If you don't, the texture may be coarse and rubbery instead of soft and fluffy.

Orange cake, when it's made with whole rather than separated eggs, is a little tricky. The acid in orange zest and orange juice would destabilise the eggs if it has half a chance. So you must make sure it doesn't have any chance, not even half.

There're a few booby traps in the recipe that may trip you up if you're not careful. Here's what you have to do:

⋈ The flour must be mixed with the eggs first, before orange zest is added to the batter. It protects the eggs from the acid in the orange peel. If you add the zest before or with the flour, the batter will become thin and bubbly. The bubbles won't magically disappear in the oven, so your cakes will be full of big holes.

⋈ After adding orange zest and juice, along with oil, the batter must be folded with a spatula, quickly and gently. A whisk would result in overmixing, allowing the acid to attack the eggs. If the batter becomes bubbly and runny, you can wave goodbye to your cakes.

⋈ The oven must be at 190°C. If the temperature is too low, the cakes set too slowly, giving the orange zest and juice time to attack the eggs.

There're many roads to Rome. If you compare my recipe to Nasilemaklover's,  you'll find that hers has more flour. Her orange sponge cupcakes use  100 g cake flour for 3 eggs whereas mine would have only 60 g cake flour  for 3 eggs. The more flour there is, the safer the eggs.

For those who like to compare recipes, here you go:


Between the two recipes, I prefer mine because . . . it's mine. Just as, I'm sure, NLL likes hers because it's hers. Hey, I know! You would be more objective. Why don't you try both and tell us which one is better?

ORANGE SPONGE CUPCAKES (香橙海棉杯子蛋糕) (Recipe for 5 cupcakes) 100 g eggs 6 g glucose 40 g castor sugar 40 g cake flour pinch salt 4 g orange zest finely grated with a sharp zester 30 g corn oil 10 g fresh orange juice add to corn oil Preheat oven to 190°C. Prep and measure ingredients as detailed above. Lay out 5 cardboard cupcake moulds (4 big- and 1 regular-sized). Whisk glucose, eggs and sugar till ribbon stage. Sift half of cake flour into egg mixture. With a whisk, mix till almost even. Sift remaining half of cake flour. Add salt. Mix with a whisk again, this time till just even. Add orange zest. Stir orange juice and oil mixture and add to batter. With a spatula, quickly scrape down and fold till just evenly mixed, banging mixing bowl against worktop 1-2 times, not too hard, to remove big air bubbles. Quickly fill cardboard moulds with batter to 90% full. Arrange moulds on baking tray, spaced apart. Place tray on oven's bottom shelf. Bake till batter doesn't move when gently jiggled, about 10 minutes. Move tray to upper middle shelf. Bake till cakes are golden brown, and springy when pressed lightly, another 5 minutes or so. Remove cakes to wire rack. Serve warm or leave to cool down completely. Cold cupcakes may be topped with buttercream, whipped cream or cream cheese frosting, and decorated with orange and mint leaves.

Cake Dos & Don'ts

This rather long post, for cake newbies, can be summarised in three words: Follow the recipe. Experienced bakers may change anything they like because they know what works or probably works. Beginners, OTOH, can't tell if a seemingly insignificant detail is actually a critical part of the recipe. If you're one of these, I hope this post shows you why you may want to do everything the recipe says, and not do everything the recipe doesn't say.

What to Do Before Your Cake Fails

a) Use an oven thermometer.  »

A lot of ovens aren't accurate. If the oven temperature is wrong, you have two problems. First, your cake may fail, or it may not as good as it could be. Second, if your cake fails, you have no idea what the problem is. It may be the oven temperature, or something else. If you know for a fact what the temperature is, you can at least eliminate the oven from your list of suspects.

Some recipes say "every oven is different". That may be true but one 180°C is the same as another 180°C. Whatever you're baking doesn't care what oven it's in. It only cares what the temperature (and humidity) is.

An oven thermometer measures the temperature in the oven; it can't tell where the heat is coming from. If the top heat is higher/lower than the bottom heat, your cake will fail. Fortunately, most ovens don't have this problem. If you think yours does, toast a slice of bread in the middle of the oven, on a rack at 220°C. If the top and bottom of the bread browns evenly, the oven is good.

b) Don't change the pan type.  »

Only round, square and rectangular "regular" pans made of the same material are interchangeable. The pan type goes with the recipe. It affects how quickly the batter heats up, how deep the batter is, and how much structural support the cake needs. These factors in turn affect how high the cake rises and whether it stays up there or comes back down after cooling down.

My recipes use aluminium pans. If you use dark coloured non-stick pans, your cakes will be different from mine.

c) Scale the recipe according to your pan size.  »

If your pan is bigger/smaller than the recipe's, you must scale the recipe proportionately. Of course, you could scale the recipe first, then find the proportionate pan size. How wide and long the pan is affects the depth of the batter. Deep batter rises more than shallow batter, all other things being equal.

If you don't know how to change the pan size or scale the recipe, please refer to question (i) and (j) in this post: Cake FAQ.

d) Don't replace any ingredient.  »

The only exception is flavourless oil, which may be swapped with any flavourless oil. Changing any other ingredient has an impact on the cake. Once you modify the recipe, it's yours. If you like the final product, congratulations. If you don't? It's your recipe, so you fix it.

e) Don't leave out any ingredient.  »

Bad recipes are like germs and idiots – they are everywhere. If your cake fails, wouldn't you want to know if the recipe really works and is worth another attempt? The only way you'd know, if you don't know much about baking, is by sticking to the recipe.

f) Measure everything accurately.  »

The more exact you are, the higher the chances of executing the recipe correctly.

Accuracy is crucial for fluffy cakes. Why? Because fluffy cakes have very weak structures. When the measurements are wrong, the cake will collapse or it won't be as fluffy as it should be. If you want to bake the lightest and fluffiest cake possible, one that doesn't collapse but is one the verge of collapsing, the balance of ingredients must be spot on. If you're not the obsessive-compulsive-anal-retentive type, don't bake fluffy cakes. Try fruit cakes instead.

g) Observe the eggs/whites/yolks you're whisking.  »

How long it takes to whisk eggs/whites/yolks to the stage required in the recipe depends on the speed and size of the whisk; the size, shape and material of the bowl, the atmospheric humidity and temperature; and the freshness, temperature, size and quantity of eggs being whisked. For beginners, this is not the time to multitask because you need to watch what you're whisking, like a hawk. Your cake will fail if the eggs/whites/yolks are under- or overwhisked. The latter may happen in seconds, so go slow towards the end and keep testing.

h) Once you start whisking eggs, work quickly.  »

If kept waiting too long, whisked eggs/yolks lose their air bubbles and whisked whites lose their extensibility. If you have to check on your baby, go to the loo or read the recipe, do it before you start whisking or after the cake starts baking.

i) The cake is done when it's done.  »

The baking time in the recipe is a guide, not cast in stone. Why? Because it's difficult to whisk every batch of eggs/whites/yolks to the same level of thickness/stiffness. The stiffer the whites are, the faster the cake sets and browns. Yolks and whole eggs have the opposite effect as they thicken.

If you scale the recipe, the baking time may vary by 5-10 minutes. You should test if the cake is done as per the recipe whether or not the recipe is scaled.

j) Prep the cake pan as directed.  »

Some readers line/grease the pan when the recipe says nothing about lining/greasing the pan. And then they whine when their cake fails, insisting they've followed the recipe to a T. These people should relearn their alphabets.

There're two parts to "following to a T":

1. Do everything the recipe says. 
2. Don't do everything the recipe doesn't say.

k) Keep an eye on the cake in the oven.  »

Knowing how and when the batter rises, sets, browns and sinks (!) helps with the post-mortem.

l) Cool down as directed.  »

It ain't over till the fat lady sings cake cools down. Don't let your guard down at the last minute or your cake may shrink excessively or collapse.

What to Do After Your Cake Fails

m) Retrace your steps.  »

Check if you had:

1. The right ingredients.
2. The right amount of ingredients.
3. The right method for combining the ingredients.
4. The right pan size.
5. The right pan type.
6. The right preparation for the pan.
7. The right oven temperature.
8. The right baking method.
9. The right method for testing if the cake is done.
10. The right cooling down method.

n) Don't meddle with the recipe.  »

When you meddle, you change the recipe. Why does your cake fail in the first place? Because you changed the recipe. You can't solve a problem with what causes it, can you? 

o) Don't ask me why your cake fails.  »

 Why not? Because:

1. If the recipe works, then why your cake fails boils down to which part of the recipe you didn't follow. The best person to answer the question is you, not me because I wasn't there when you did it.
2. If you think the recipe doesn't work, the last thing you'd want is advice from the person who posted the recipe that doesn't work.
3. If the recipe really doesn't work, you're not going to hear it from me.