Why can't I bake flat cakes?

[Eider]

Hi,

So I've just taken my vegan banana layer cakes out of the oven and they domed. Again. I tried allsorts. I do every time I bake but it never works. I've wrapped damp tea towel 'baking strips' around the tins, I've wrapped those baking strips in foil and tried that, I've tried completely smoothing out the batter, I've tried squishing the cakes down when they come out of the oven until they are kind of flat, but now they are just tiny and thin. I tried all those things again with this cake. But whatever I do, I never, EVER get a flat cake like all cake decorators do. How do they do it? Why can they do it and I can't? What am I doing wrong? It's not the fact that it's a vegan recipe because on the website I got it off, all of her cakes are completely flat and very tall from the spongy cakes. Why can't I do it???

Any help would be much appreciated because it's my birthday tomorrow and I need the cake for then and I'm wondering whether to make it again but I think it will just go wrong again. Help

Thanks.

 

[Norcalbaker59]

Hi,

So I've just taken my vegan banana layer cakes out of the oven and they domed. Again. I tried allsorts. I do every time I bake but it never works. I've wrapped damp tea towel 'baking strips' around the tins, I've wrapped those baking strips in foil and tried that, I've tried completely smoothing out the batter, I've tried squishing the cakes down when they come out of the oven until they are kind of flat, but now they are just tiny and thin. I tried all those things again with this cake. But whatever I do, I never, EVER get a flat cake like all cake decorators do. How do they do it? Why can they do it and I can't? What am I doing wrong? It's not the fact that it's a vegan recipe because on the website I got it off, all of her cakes are completely flat and very tall from the spongy cakes. Why can't I do it???

Any help would be much appreciated because it's my birthday tomorrow and I need the cake for then and I'm wondering whether to make it again but I think it will just go wrong again. Help

Thanks.

Happy birthday. Sorry you are having so much trouble with your cakes. Baking is all science. Even in a standard recipe the brand of ingredients will affect the way a cake bakes. So when you convert a recipe to vegan, it has an extraordinary impact on gluten development and rate of starch gelatinization. And these two factors determine how a cake rises and how it sets. Since there are so many different ingredients that can be used to create a vegan cake, you would need to contact the recipe developer to help you troubleshoot.

 

[-Daniel-]

All of my cakes rise, they never stay flat! As long as they don't collapse in on themselves I'm happy. I'll cut off the top and use it to test the taste, or something I stick with it, a dome can be a good look for some cakes