Hi

I recently tried baking a cake using the Wilton Wonder mold and it seemed to have really messed up my cooking time and the cake came out dry
I used the Perfect All American Chocolate butter cake recipe from the Cake bible.
The recipe wasn’t able to fill up the mold 3/4 so it didn’t rise to the very top. I think the cake ended up being an inch shorter then it should be.

I had to bake the cake for almost an hour even with the aluminum rod in the middle!
I thought that the rod would help the cake bake evenly so i didn’t change the cooking temp
I cooked it at 350F and it took so long to cook that i found it a bit drier then normal

Has anyone ever use this cake pan before and which recipe did you use?
How did you adjust oven temp/timing to make it work?
I’ll be making another cake using the mold in several months and I’m hoping to have it all worked out by then.

thanks

“Pan is 8 in. diameter and 5 in. deep; takes 5-6 cups of firm-textured batter. Heat-conducting rod assures even baking” - from Wilton.com

I don’t have the CBible in front of me, ...but my first guess is… did you compare how many cups the cake made in the recipe vs. how many cups the pan holds?
The pan is 3” deeper or so than most standard 8” cake pans…

I’m not sure this is the right thing to do ..but what about multiplying the recipe by 1.5… so you have a more batter to fit the mold… and I would expect a decent amount of baking time to due the 5” ....You may also want to check Charlotte mold recipes and check baking time/pan sized etc.. times on those.  ?

It’s a little confusing, because the directions with that pan say to use a two-layer cake mix, which I think means enough batter for two 9x2 round pans.  The capacity of two 9x2 pans is 17.3 cups, so I’m assuming that the mix would make something like half that amount, i.e., 8.7 cups of batter.  But the dimensions and the info in the previous post suggest that the pan capacity is much lower than 17+ cups and needs less batter.

My thought would be to first check the pan capacity by pouring water into it.  Since your first trial, with a smaller amount of batter didn’t work, perhaps consider it a bundt-style cake: use a bundt recipe and fill the pan 3/4 full. 

Other things to check: oven temp accurate, all ingredients weighed (except small spoon-sized measures), and full-fat (20% +) cocoa used.

b/c the box said 2 layered cake I used the Perfect All American chocolate butter cake since it was baked in 2 pans
But I guess it’s baked in 2 9in 1.5in high pans so maybe it’s a little shorter then what I need.

I’ve baked that cake before in the normal cake pans and I know it turns out fine in terms of moisture and texture.
I’ve also baked them in cupcake form before and they’re perfect.

My main concern is the fact that I had to bake the cake for an hour when the recipe said about 35 mins

Due to the size and shape of the pan, should I have lowered the temperature for better cooking?
Is there something I can do to make the cake more moist without destroying the structure of the cake?

:(

Aggie - 11 August 2011 08:27 AM

My main concern is the fact that I had to bake the cake for an hour when the recipe said about 35 mins

Due to the size and shape of the pan, should I have lowered the temperature for better cooking?

Rose has a bundt version of this cake- same quanitity of batter as you made- in RHC, and it bakes for 50-65 minutes at 350F, so your baking time/temp doesn’t seem off.  It makes sense that splitting the batter up into two pans, each a shallower layer, would allow the batter to bake more quickly than putting it all in one deep pan.

Is there something I can do to make the cake more moist without destroying the structure of the cake?

Syrup it, and/or look for a bundt cake recipe that contains oil.

A few other thoughts:
-Do you know how many cups your pan holds?  Rose puts the same amount of batter that you made in a ten cup bundt.  If your pan is underfilled, it won’t bake properly and that can be one cause of dryness.
-Where exactly was the cake dry?  You may be able to devise some protection for the areas of the pan that bake more quickly.  For example, if the bottom of the pan (the narrowest part) is the most dry, you could try devising something to shield that part, like a cake strip or another pan, or even a bain marie.  Not sure what will work, but please report back if you find a solution.

I think it was more dry at the narrow part.
I can try with some cake strip next time if i can manage to warp it around the pan.

I’ll have to measure out the cake pan again
It was definitely more then a litre
I think close to 2 but I’ll have to check for sure.

What I wasn’t sure of was why the rod didn’t seem to help. I was sort of surprised, but when I try with the bundt recipe I’ll see if there’s any improvement

thanks

so i measured out the pan
it’s 11 cups

I measured out a silcon bundt pan i have and it was less then 10 cups
i think maybe 9ish

I baked the whip cream cake from heavenly cakes in the silcon bundt pan…which required a 10cup bundt pan
but when i baked it, the cake didn’t go all the way up to the top
actually it was an inch off from the top.
i was hoping to be able to use that recipe for the wilton mold cause it’s close to 11 cups…but now i’m unsure because it couldn’t even fill the whole bundt pan that’s less then 10 cups

i wonder if i did something wrong with the cake so it didn’t rise…it was still very moist

just an update
i tried thee fudge velvet cake from THC
it worked great
just an inch shorter then what it should be but it was still good
the cake wasn’t dry like my other cakes when i tried

now i just have to find a good vanilla recipe for the cake
yay

i made a belle cake for my niece’s bday
http://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/406311_10100825881753422_28121600_64994922_612773039_n.jpg

Very sweet, I’ll bet your niece was thrilled.