How to Prevent Coffee Cake from Collapsing

[Tucker30]

Hi. I'm a newbie to both the forum and baking . . so apologies if this question has already been answered. Every holiday season, my wife makes dozens of coffee cakes using her grandmother's recipe that we deliver to neighbors and friends. After years of making beautiful cakes, we've recently "lost" a bunch to the top rising really high and then collapsing - while at the same time, sometimes the middle isn't fully cooked. Literally 50% of the cakes end up this way. Her theory is that we got a new Cuisinart mixer and that we are mixing the ingredients at different speeds than before. My theory is that it might depend on the pan and that it is heating differently. We're not competing on this, we're just trying to shoot better than 50%. Does anyone have a reliable way of baking something as seemingly simple as a coffee cake without it caving in on itself. Thanks.

 

[ChesterV]

Using a different mixer has nothing to do with how the cake comes out. It's how long you mix and at what speeds you use.

From your description, I would say this is a heating problem in the oven...nothing to do with a mixer.

 

[Becky]

Welcome to the forum @Tucker30

I'd agree with Chester on this one. Might also be something to do with the raising agent - is she using a different type or different amount?

 

[Panadeiro]

Using a different mixer has nothing to do with how the cake comes out. It's how long you mix and at what speeds you use.

From your description, I would say this is a heating problem in the oven...nothing to do with a mixer.

That's accurate, but the oven is not always the guilty one when it comes to baking, check out the temperatures you have to bake it on and try again.

 

[Tori Hibbert]

I'd say you're over-beating the mixture unknowingly with a better mixer, and might not realise if you are going off time mixed rather than speed. You could also be using too much raising agent. Last resort, I'd say buy a separate temperature probe to put into your oven to get a more reliable reading? If you've had your oven for a while then the thermostat may not be working correctly (i.e. says you're at 180 when its more likely to be 160 etc). Hope you manage to sort it out because coffee cake is fabulous