Baking Chocolate Fudge Cake

Asked by Emilyfrances. Answered on 27th December 2019

Full question

For the Chocolate Fudge Cake recipe I made the cake exactly to the instructions and the batter was runny but not that runny. When I took it out of the oven, the cake had shrunk away from the sides and it was firm to touch - if anything, it looked over done. After 15 minutes of resting in the tin, I took the cakes out and turned them over to cool. After I had iced it I cut into it and it was completely raw inside! What went wrong? the tins I used were deep tins - would this have lowered the temperature (I cooked the cakes for 55 minutes at 160 degrees fan oven). Please advise!

Chocolate Fudge Cake

By Nigella

Our answer

Nigella's Chocolate Fudge Cake (from NIGELLA BITES) is a moist chocolate sponge. The cake batter is fairly runny as this helps to cake to stay moist when baked. It also gives a fairly long baking time.

If the tins were deep (e.g. more like springform tins that layer cake/sandwich tins) then it is possible that this would have affected the way the cake bakes as the deeper sides deflect the heat of the oven and make it harder for the heat to penetrate to the centre of the cake. The recipe also suggests testing if the cake is done by using a cake tester or skewer. Insert this into the centre of the cake and if the cake is done then it will come out clean. If the cake is not baked in the centre then it will have uncooked cake batter on it. In this case it would have shown the centre of the cake was not cooked. If the centre is not cooked you can try looseley covering the tops of the tins with foil and bake for a further 5 minutes, before testing again, but do this carefully as the cake could sink if the centre is not set.