in the past i have made a lemon cake from another source only to have it bubble and ooze out of the pan and never set, i today tried to make roses lemon cake from the heavely cakes book and i followed the directions to the t. why is this happening? i need this resolved asap i am making it for my daughters bday saturday.

Hi, Summer!

Welcome!

Sorry you’ve been having cake problems!

To me, and I could be missing a possibility, it seems if the cake is oozing out of the pan, that there must either be (1) too much batter or (2) a leavening problem.

Do you mind if I ask you a few of the obvious questions—it seems like this problem might point to one of them!

(1) Quantity of batter in the pans:

- Are you using the correct pan—both diameter and height?
- Are you using the correct number of pans?

(2) Leavening:

- Are you—and I don’t mean anything by this—mixing up your tablespoons and teaspoons when measuring leavening?
- Are you possibly confusing baking powder and baking soda?

Hopefully, we can get to the bottom of it before Saturday!

—ak

p.s. Which cake were you making from RHC?

I am making woodys luxury lemon cake. Totally sure about measurements. I filled the pans only a third full because I’m making a tiered cake this will be the second tier which is a 6x2 round. I know you decrease levening for larger cakes so I didn’t for this cake because it is smaller. However, when I have made it the correct size it still happens. Maybe the zest affects the leavening?

You might check the activity of your baking powder and whether you oven might be running cool.

I don’t think zest is the culprit, it couldn’t change pH enough to prevent the batter from setting unless you were using prodigous amounts.

Zest shouldn’t, if the recipe calls for it.

The lem lux is the TCB Golden Luxury Butter Cake, one of my faves, with lemony additions.  I don’t think there is a wedding cake for it, specifically, so I can’t direct you to the wedding cake section for leavening.

One 9x2 (vol = 127 in3) round makes a little more than two 6x2 rounds (2 = 113.04), so you should.  I think lem luxe calls for two 9x2 layers, so 1/2 of that recipe should fill your two 6x2 pans with some leftover.  But, as you say, you’re filling the pans 1/3 full, so you should be safe in any event.

As you say, you decrease for larger cakes and increase for smaller.  However, leaving it the same (rather than increasing BP slightly) for a 6x2 should work, with the worst to happen being a domed (rather than flat) layer.

Geez, I am perplexed!!!

You aren’t weighing the leavning, are you?  It’s best to weigh everything except small quantities, like leavening, salt, spices, etc., because scales aren’t accurate at such minor quantities—you could be over-leavening if you are weighing those instead of measuring.  Is that possible????

Could you describe more fully what happened to Rose’s lemon cake?  It bubbled, overflowed the pan and never set, is that right?  It does sound like - as Anne pointed out- you might have subbed baking soda for baking powder.  Or oven too cool.

I’m perplexed as well. Ill give it another whirl tonight. I don’t weigh the small quantity stuff. Hmmmm maybe if I fill a quarter full, like the german chocolate cake recipe calls. Ill let everyone how it turns out.

Hi, Summer,

You don’t really want to underfill a pan either—the high walls compared to batter doesn’t work well (texture-wise), unless the recipe is designed for it, like the gc. Not to get too Goldyloxy, you don’t to either over- or under- fll.  You want it to be juuuuuuuust right!!!  Your 1/3 should have worked well, if everything else was fine.

If you’re making two 9x2 layers, you should be able to divide it into your 6x2 pans without incident—the leftover 10g shouldn’t make a difference.

It’s a beastly situation!!!

More specifically the cake oozed and flowed out of the pan like a science experiment. It stayed liquid and never set. I used baking Powder like it called for. I’ve made the luxury.golden cake before with no problems. And I have an oven thermometer in my oven to watch temperature.I’m going to try again and see what happens.

Well, I for one, am completely mystefied.

High elevation symptom?

I am using the golden butter cake recipe and adding lemon zest.. The measurements for baking powder are slightly different. One calls for 1 tbsp plus 1.5 tsp, they other calls for 4.5 tsp in the luxury lemon cake

Hey, Summer—Those are equivalent amounts, assuming the other ingredients are in similar ratios.  4.5 t = 1T plus1.5 t. (because 1T = 3t).

Yeah I figured out after I did the measuring. Well everyone the cake still exploded ugh…

summerroseb - 11 May 2012 12:12 AM

Yeah I figured out after I did the measuring. Well everyone the cake still exploded ugh…

What is the elevation where you live?

In addition to Charles’ question about your elevation, is it possible that you are using self-rising flour—maybe you grabbed a bag of it by accident at the groc?