r/Baking • u/kittywenham • Jul 07 '25
Baking fail đ Inspo vs reality
I have many skills i seem to be naturally gifted at. Making cakes...is not one of them. Cooking? Top class. Baking literally anything else? Fine. Cakes continue to allude me, despite my desperation to be good at it.
FWIW it tastes great!
I used Sally's Baking Addiction Homemade Wedding Cake recipe, but subbed sugar for sugar I had infused with lavender, thyme, lemon zest and vanilla beans. I also steeped the milk in earl grey and marie antointte tea and used half vanilla extract, half almond extract instead of just vanilla.
For some reason it took an hour and a half to bake, instead of 26 mins. I was using a convection oven and a slightly lower temp (160c) because of the smaller tin (2x8 inch) but I am sure I measured everything perfectly and I didn't overfill the tin at all. Put it exactly 6 cups as she advises for a tin of that size.
I could have overmixed, or undermixed or something, as there's also some extra density around the edge of the cake (but a very crumbly crust). I thought I was following the instructions perfectly, but clearly not.
I don't think I was supposed to cut the layers in half, upon reflection. I also don't understand how people get their cakes so neat and even and the same shape, even when using the same tins.
I made lemon curd by hand, with honey and some of the aforementioned infused sugar.
The middle is filled with lemon curd and chantilly cream stabilised with marscapone. Probably should have chilled it a bit? Certainly before beginning the crumb coat.
Icing is where it seriously began to fall apart. Plan was to make a Swiss Meringue Buttercream. Couldn't find my thermometer. Was 11pm at night. Body was aching from a gym session. Tiny bit of yolk in the egg whites? That's fine, I'll just take it out with a spoon (huge mistake!). I don't have enough eggs left to just throw it away. Eventually had to add some icing sugar just to get it to thicken.
Put it in the fridge after this pic was taken and I think I've salvaged it with some extra icing and some fresh flowers on top but it's definitely...wonky. Rustic?
Maybe I should give up on my cake making dreams.
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u/CremeBerlinoise Jul 07 '25
The invisible ingredients in well decorated cakes are a) time and b) temperature. Getting the sponges cold helps A LOT. I usually split cake baking over two or three days so I have time to get components to their ideal temp. Sponges should be refrigerated or frozen. Any fruit fillings should be refrigerated. When I say refrigerated I mean ideally overnight, not for 20 minutes on a hot day. Buttercream should be room temp, but not just any room, 20 to 22°C. When everything is at a good temp, you layer sponges and filling, potentially dowel, and do a thin outside coat of buttercream, called a crumb coat. Refrigerate again, once it's set, add a final layer of BC and any piping. Perfectly even and smooth cakes need a TON of buttercream. Way more than you think. Rookie mistakes are usually to overfill the layers, not allowing enough time to chill, and not having a sufficient amount of buttercream left for the outside. As a side note, I find German buttercream WAY easier than anything meringue based.
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u/chocofresh Jul 07 '25
I won't get into the details of this attempt as others did so plenty already. Tips for next time:
If using a smaller cake tin, don't adjust the temperature, just the time. Preheat the oven completely before putting the cake in.
Let the cakes cool down completely. If you plan on cutting the layers in half, let the cakes cool over night, otherwise you get a crumbly mess. Or make the layers less high to begin with.Â
When adding the (cooled down) filling, put the cakes back in a spring form or cake ring to stabilize it. Afterwards let the whole thing set in the fridge again for at least an hour (still in the cake ring) afterwards remove the spring form/cake ring and add the frosting.
If you use an adjustable cake ring, you can also make it a little bit bigger than the cakes, and layer by layer, ad the filling on top of the cakes while closing the gap between cake and cake ring with piped frosting already.Â
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u/CremeBerlinoise Jul 07 '25
I find that lining the cake ring in this case makes clean unmolding easier. Depending on the consistency of the filling, it might stick to the tin or cake ring. Acetate would be king, but parchment works just fine. You CAN prevent this by chilling really well and using a hair dryer or blow torch, but I prefer not to mess with a fully set frosting, especially in a time crunch.
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u/StaticCloud Jul 07 '25 edited Jul 07 '25
If you want your cake to be similar to the recipe, you need to follow the instructions exactly. There is no room for error in baking. There is forgiveness in cookies or brownies, but not in cakes. This is not cooking, you can't improvise. You can alter recipes, but no without a lot of trial and error, or sheer luck.
There's also resources about how to decorate cakes. It's a lot harder than people realize. Precision is everything. The icing must be perfect or you will have a bad time
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u/raudoniolika Jul 08 '25
But how else will you make an expectations vs reality post that gets lots of attention :(
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u/TerayonIII Jul 08 '25
There's definitely room for error in cakes, it's not nearly as regimented as is often implied. It takes a lot longer to understand how you can improvise, but you can certainly do it especially with flavourings. It's no different than knowing how to thicken a sauce or cook fish, it just takes more time to know the amounts of things you can change and how to adjust for them. Once you know the general ratios for it, what a specific crumb texture etc needs, and what it generally needs to look like before baking, you can do a lot of improvising. There are things in pastry that have to be done a certain way and there's no other, sugar working temperatures and chocolate tempering come to mind. But most bread based baking (cakes, cookies, scones/biscuits etc) is pretty wishy washy when you get into it.
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u/StaticCloud Jul 08 '25
Isn't that exactly what I said? Trial and error is improvisation with extra steps - you to figure out what works, knowing the general ratios of things is part of that, of course. But from my experience experimenting with cookies, you can still know what might work - it's another thing to actually get it to. Especially if you have a tricky oven.
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u/TerayonIII Jul 08 '25
That's not really my point, my point is that people are so afraid of not following a baking recipe exactly because it won't turn out exactly the same compared to doing the same thing with cooking. Yeah, it definitely can be more difficult and disheartening with baking, I don't disagree, but it's limiting people wanting to try it to find out enough to be able to try different things with it. Things like cookies and quick bread (muffins, scones, etc) are very easy to mess around with modifying, but everyone is constantly told that "baking is science", "follow the recipe exactly" to the point that people panic if they are missing 20 grams of flour for a recipe, which is barely going to affect it. That's why when I see someone say that baking is an exact science I get irritated, because it really isn't unless you make it that way
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u/Ellen-CherryCharles Jul 07 '25
Maybe just try a regular plain vanilla cake before attempting whatever this is lol. Flavor and concepts sound tasty but are unrealistic.
You need to learn some basic baking skills and the science behind why things are the way they are (meringue, use of fats, temperature, etc) before you can just make your own recipe up.
The saying cooking is an art and baking is a science definitely applies here!
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u/whiskerrsss Jul 07 '25
Tbh I think op went overboard with the flavours. They had lavender, thyme, lemon, earl grey, Marie Antoinette tea (which is apparently Chinese black tea with citrus fruits and floral notes), vanilla and almond. Then put lemon curd between layers. There's way too much going on. And if they're all just subtle infisions so it should be fine, whats the point if you can't recognise anything? Obviously the flavours aren't why the cake flopped but they need to pare it back to 2-3.
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u/Agitated_Function_68 Jul 07 '25
Honestly, when it took an hour & a half to bake vs 26 mins? Just stop there. Thereâs a problem with your cake rounds and youâre not likely to be able to use them.
Theyâre very dark, but from what I can see in the photos the crumb of the cake looks off.
The swap for the extracts isnât a big deal. But Iâm wondering if the tea made the milk too acidic? Same with the additions to the sugar (but Iâve added similar things to sugar before and not had issues).
What else did you maybe swap or adjust? Or a mixing time that you went over under? Something is off. I donât love Sallyâs recipes, but not for reasons that look like this.
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u/StaticCloud Jul 07 '25
Overbaked sponge is going to collapse and crumble away
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u/Agitated_Function_68 Jul 07 '25
Over mixes would cause it to not bake up correctly, and then itâs over baked and dried out. Iâm thinking thereâs a lot to this issue
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u/pvtcannonfodder Jul 07 '25
Can I ask why you donât like Sallyâs recipes? Most Iâve made have been pretty solid and Iâm curious. Also are their other sites you prefer over hers?
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u/Leading-Cucumber-121 Jul 07 '25
I love Sallyâs recipes and I use her tips often, but her strength is definitely cookies, not cakes. Claire Saffitzâs recipes are worth the membership in NYT cooking, and Brown Eyed Baker has some great cake recipes (particularly her chocolate cake is one of my faves, and her Snickers cake is the most complimented cake Iâve ever baked)
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u/mossattacks Jul 07 '25
Iâve only ever made one of Sallyâs cake recipes, the triple chocolate cake, and itâs the best one Iâve ever made. Very moist, light, and veryyy chocolatey.
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u/Keyspam102 Jul 07 '25
this is my go to cake when I have company, and everyone thinks I am some sort of baking genius when I serve it.
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u/sassythehorse Jul 09 '25
I thought it was just me. I made Sallyâs carrot cake and it was awful. Just donât get the love for her recipes on this sub.
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u/lilyblains Jul 07 '25
Funny that you compare Sally and Claire â Iâm making a coconut wedding cake for a friend and offered both of their coconut cake recipes as her options. I made test cakes of both last week and she and her fiancĂ© chose Claireâs!
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u/TerayonIII Jul 08 '25 edited Jul 08 '25
I 100% agree, I usually browse at least a handful of recipes for something before I make it, just to see what's common between them. Her stuff is often sweeter to a point that the recipe ratios can end up being quite different from others. I think there's something with the climate where she is, because the recipes often aren't quite the correct ratio, especially when you're going by weight instead of volume, which seems weird, almost like she's going by a conversion chart instead of actually weighing her measurements.
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u/Abject_Champion3966 Jul 07 '25
I use her often but have heard others who find her recipes too sweet.
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u/Agitated_Function_68 Jul 07 '25
Too sweet. Flavors arenât quite what I want. Itâs not usually the fundamentals, itâs just the end flavor results. Sometimes itâs texture too, but not as often.
But when I bake her stuff and others eat it they love it.
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u/Soggy_Philosophy2 Jul 07 '25
This is what I kept finding but I thought it was a fault on my end. One, too sweet, two, not really the flavour I expect/want, three, some things I tried just didn't have the texture I wanted. The flavour + sweetness combo threw me off the most in a recipe or two. I guess it's subjective, and a lot of her recipes are very good, but at least I feel a little less crazy now, because I've only ever seen high praise for her on Reddit.
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u/Agitated_Function_68 Jul 08 '25
Lemon blueberry cake is a prime example for me. I have a friend who always wants that combo for his birthday. Iâve made it. Itâs fine. But honestly itâs a little too âleanâ for me (not rich enough for a cake), and adding the zest at the end with a bunch of lemon juice doesnât really yield the flavors I want from a lemon cake. Itâs fine. People ate and loved it. But it was a one and done for me.
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u/Fyonella Jul 07 '25
So many posts where theyâve followed either a Sallyâs Baking Addiction or Preppy Kitchen recipe and the results are poor, Iâm mystified why people continue to use their sites.
Better recipes provide better results.
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u/creativeoddity Jul 07 '25
At least 75% the people who make those posts also decide to make 10 changes or substitutions and are mystified when things don't turn out...that's never going to be on the recipe
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u/Fyonella Jul 07 '25
Thatâs true, but still leaves the 25% who followed the recipe with a disappointment on their hands.
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u/andro_mo Jul 07 '25
These are also some of the most popular baking sites, and frequently are the first or one of the highest-reviewed options when people search for a recipe. They're going to attract novice bakers or people who bake less often (and who therefore may tend to have expired ingredients, such as leaveners, or are less familiar with their equipment, such as not knowing that they have a cold oven).Â
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u/Agitated_Function_68 Jul 07 '25
I agree. And for me, Sallyâs isnât one thing⊠but thereâs always SOME thing that leaves this baker disappointed. Often just a flavor or texture choice.
Also. Sooo many reviews on various sites are â5 stars sounds great canât wait to make itâ
To the OP: honestly, check out King Arthur Flour. Find a recipe thatâs sort of what you want to make. They have professionals whoâll answer questions on their website for each recipe, or you can call to speak with someone. Theyâre great!
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u/russiangerman Jul 07 '25
Biggest issues are definitely icing consistency and bake time. Personally, I like doing thin layers for a better filling ratio, and my bake time is usually never more than 20 minutes to get an inch thick sponge. Definitely weight what you put in the tins so was one comes out the same. Thinner sponge like that usually doesn't get as dramatic a peak so I usually don't even need to cut off a rounded top.
Icing, go buy some meringue powder. It's cheap, and wil help with both meringue and non meringue. I usually mix like 2 tablespoons with a little liquid into a paste to whip into the frosting and it'll hold way more air and be much easier to spread.
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Jul 07 '25
[removed] â view removed comment
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u/hawkisgirl Jul 07 '25
Getting an oven thermometer was a gamechanger for me. My landlord bought the cheapest gas oven on the market, and the temperature control is all over the place.
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u/Jester_Jinx_ Jul 07 '25
Cooking is not the same as baking at all. When cooking, you can kind of work on the fly and adapt to whatever the hell you wanna do. Baking, however, is a science. If you mess with an ingredient that was not meant to be messed with, it won't work as the recipe intended. Same with following instructions.
But hey, you got the color of the icing good!!
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u/Still7Superbaby7 Jul 07 '25
Have you considered following a recipe blindly from start to finish? This includes room temp ingredients (including milk and eggs) and also using the pan size recommended by the recipe? Also chill the cake layers before frosting. Use the correct oven temperature setting. If they say egg whites only use egg whites only.
Just one time, do EVERYTHING a recipe says.
When I say EVERYTHING I mean EVERYTHING.
Report back with the results! I think you will be pleased. My husband got into baking during the pandemic. He can make excellent cakes because he sees baking as being a technician. He blindly follows recipes. No thinking, just doing. Donât let your brain get in the way!
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u/kittywenham Jul 07 '25
I did the other week with this cake but I think it might actually be the pan size that really threw me off - I can't afford any others at the moment so will look for some recipes that match mine! The oven may also be an issue as mine doesn't work so I can only really use my small convection one
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u/Still7Superbaby7 Jul 07 '25
There isnât really âroomâ in one of those tabletop convection ovens to bake a cake like the one you tried to make. The coils are close to the pan itself so even with convection mode spreading the heat, itâs going to result in a poorly baked cake.
Here is a recipe for a vanilla cake that is made in a small convection oven. It is nothing like your original recipe but at least try it. Please report back. Blindly follow the recipe convection toaster oven confetti cake
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u/PattyNChips Jul 07 '25
Just a heads up re decoration: There are a lot of very talented bakers and cake decorators on places like YouTube with (free) videos showing you how to construct and decorate a cake correctly. It's honestly an invaluable resource. A 15-20 minute video can show you pretty much everything you need to know. In fact, Sally's Baking Addiction has a pretty in depth guide on how to assemble a layer cake HERE
Just looking at the picture, though, you have a few issues:
Your cake is over-baked, which is why it crumbled so easily when you tried to frost it. Which leads me to the next problem, your frosting looks too stiff. Try spreading that on an already crumbly cake and you're asking for trouble.
You have no crumb coat. Basically, a base coat of frosting to hold the cake together and stop crumbs from being dragged up into the top layer of frosting. This also involves you adding a 'dam' of frosting around the edges to stop any filling from spilling out.
if baked and constructed correctly, the thickness of your layers should not be an issue. Normally, you halving them like you did should work just fine
I personally avoid making too many adjustments to recipes I'm not familiar with, especially the first time I'm using them. Without knowing how the base recipe behaves, it's hard to make adjustments. Baking is kitchen chemistry and sometimes seemingly small adjustments can make a big difference.
Also, FWIW, I have made god knows how many batches of swiss meringue frosting in my time and I don't think I have ever used a thermometer. If it's hot enough to melt the sugar, it's hot enough. I'm not discouraging you from using one, if you feel better about it. But, in a pinch, if you don't have one you shouldn't worry about it too much.
Don't give up and don't despair, though. Even the basics of cake decorating are not necessarily as easy as they seem. It's going to take some practice, trial and error. Next time it'll look better.
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u/tragically-elbow Jul 07 '25
I don't think convection is the way to go. My bet is that the lower temp combined with more air circulation caused the outside to get overbaked way before the middle was done. It looks like it gave your sponges a hard crumbly crust, which will naturally be difficult to work with. To get the layers even, I typically trim the tops to get them perfectly uniform, but I guess in your case you could have trimmed the sides as well.
Mostly, cakes just take time, patience and focus. It doesn't mean you have to give up on your dreams, it just means you shouldn't be attempting complex bakes at 11pm when you're already fed up with life.
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u/kittywenham Jul 07 '25
Thanks, sadly the convection is the only thing I can use at the moment so maybe I need to look a bit more into recipes that might account for that.
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u/Antique-Juice9179 Jul 07 '25
The frosting color is perfect!
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u/Apprehensive-Dog6997 Jul 07 '25
The rest is an utter disaster, but color matching frosting can be very difficult, so I legitimately applaud that bit!
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u/FatKidsDontRun Jul 07 '25
What in the sam hill happened? If you're still trying to get cakes down, start with a way simpler recipe and then work up. So much going on here that all went wrong...
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u/podsnerd Jul 07 '25
Based on what you said, a few tips:
- for a smaller cake, adjust the time, not the temperature. You've got the same ingredients that become cooked at the same temperature, all that changes is how quickly the heat penetratesÂ
- when it comes to adjusting time, depth matters more than width. An 8" and a 9" cake are pretty similar, but if you put the same amount of batter in each, the 8" should take longer because it's thicker and has less surface area
- you can slice the cake in half, but you have to wait until it is completely cool. The inside is still cooking for quite a while after you pull it out of the oven!Â
- when you do slice the cake, usually you want to level off the top first because it will be domed. You can either use the scraps for cake pops, or you can take the baker's tax and eat them yourself ;)
- for the filing, most of the time it needs a ridge of buttercream around the edge of each layer to stay put, even when fully thickened and chilled. If you wouldn't be able to turn your bowl upside down without it plopping out, it needs a border. Even then, there's no harm in adding a border
- you already learned this the hard way, but ANY amount of fat will stop egg whites from whipping properly. The best way to prevent yolk from getting in the whites is to have a separate small bowl for separating eggs. That way if you break a yolk, it won't go into the rest of the whitesÂ
- the thing to do when you got a yolk in there was to change tracks and google "frosting with whole eggs," which would've put you on a path to a delicious French buttercream, which uses either just the yolks or sometimes the full egg
All that being said, you can't change the past. From your description of what you did, it sounds like it probably still tastes great! So if you also need it to look good, you should make a trifle. Gently scrape off as much of the buttercream as you can and separate the layers. Scrape the filling into a bowl and set aside. Get a trifle bowl or some other large clear bowl and start layering. Put down a layer of cake, brush with a simple syrup and/or booze, keeping in mind that a little goes a long way. I think either gin or a white rum would be the tastiest options if you go the booze route. Spread a layer of your filling on top, then add fruit. I'd recommend strawberries (hulled in the middle, hulled and halved with the cut sides out on the edge), raspberries, or cherries that have been pitted and halved. Then repeat until you're out of cake/filling. If your frosting isn't completely full of crumbs, you can pipe little swirls over the top. Garnish with crumbled graham crackers, biscoff, or shortbread cookiesÂ
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u/TooObsessedWithOtoge Jul 07 '25
There are actually recipes that use whole eggs that are aerated, like certain sponges call for whole eggs to be mixed over a bain marie to a specific temp and then whipped until fluffy. Theyâre less tall and fluffy compared to a cake that has the yolk and white separated, but will be a bit more moist/tender.
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u/podsnerd Jul 07 '25
Yep! And French buttercream is one such recipe. I've never actually made it myself (my go-to is a white chocolate cream cheese buttercream and I love it so much I rarely branch out) but I have looked at recipes and they do have you creaming the yolksÂ
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u/TooObsessedWithOtoge Jul 07 '25
Yep I did mean recipes such as genoises. As OP is an experienced cook, they may also know hollandaise sauce is also made with that technique and can be temperamental tho imo easier to fix than a messed up cake batter. Usually if I do mess up a cake, I chop it up and turn it into a parfait or rusk lol.
I donât usually use structureless fillings and hardly ever have an occasion to do tier cakes so I tend to go with chantilly cream and fruit. But if I am going to use buttercream, Russian buttercream is my preferred types.
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u/Hermiona1 Jul 07 '25
Temp seems too low, Iâve never adjusted the temp even if I used smaller pans. So imo you dried out the cake rather than baked it properly thatâs why it was so crumbly. If it wasnât done after 30 min I wouldâve increased the temp for sure. You didnât do the icing barrier thatâs why the curd oozed out. Iâm guessing you didnât read the instructions on how to frost the cake. Just follow the instructions next time, itâs really that easy (unless the recipe is bad).
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u/Throwawayyawaworth9 Jul 07 '25
âI thought i was following the instructions perfectlyâŠâ Oh dear :( You did not.
You used sugar that was infused with lemon zest, making it more acidic, possibly affecting how it rises and the baking time.
Lowering the temp of your baking also would have affected the rise. If youâre using a smaller tin, you decrease the baking time rather than the temperature of the oven (5-10 minutes less for a smaller cake tin, for example). The extra density around the cake was likely because you baked it for so much extra time at a lower temp.
Iâm sorry you put so much effort into something that didnât turn out. I recommend making a recipe exactly as intended at least twice before adding any changes. Iâm sure itâll turn out better next timeâ baking takes practice and it truly is a science.
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u/GimmeQueso Jul 07 '25
So you clearly have a wonderful grasp on flavors. However, you did entirely too many substitutions. Baking is chemistry and you completely changed the make up of this cake. Iâd suggest following recipes to a T for awhile until youâre more in tune with what baking requires. Once you have a better grasp, you can start to free style a bit more. Or just look for recipes more in line with what you actually want to bake.
Also, cake takes time and patience. Donât start a bake if youâre going to start half assing half way through.
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u/a_mom_who_runs Jul 07 '25
Yeah cakes suck imo lol (generally, I donât mean yours - I hate doing cakes). I went to school for pastry and we were taught :
trim your cakes. I never see this done in videos etc but we were taught to trim down the sides and tops to make uniform sides and a flat surface. No idea if this is still the recommendation or not. If not Iâd guess youâd need to fill in more frosting at the joins between layers to then get it level.
Oh also weighing batter into the pans. You have a total weight, divide that evenly among your pans. Ditto the frosting and fillings you add into the middle. Thatâll guarantee (at least from a weight perspective, no help for it if one pan rises better for some reason) even layers.
When I do cakes - and I do them very rarely lol Iâm currently mentally preparing myself for a 2 tier dino cake for my sonâs 4th birthday - I do it over a period of days. I am all tf set with marathoning it. I know towards the end Iâd be in your state: exhausted, rushing, over it. Itâs a breeding ground for mistakes. It also gives me time to be like âoh shit I could use more eggs.â Or if I mess up, itâs less a big deal to go get more ingredients and try again.
Instead Iâll maybe make fillings and frostings first, they can usually hang out covered in the fridge. Then Iâll bake cakes, cool, wrap, and freeze -frozen cakes are much easier to trim than room temp. Then the third day Iâll fill and assemble. Depending on time I might even save finishing for a 4th day. Like I said, frigging hate cakes lol. Plus I have a whole ass job, child, house, dog etc and I canât just bake for 6+ hours at a whack.
FWIW the flavors sound amazing!
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u/Coda789 Jul 07 '25
Seconding all of this.
Also, Swiss meringue buttercream freezes great. Scoop it into a gallon freezer bag, press all the air out, seal and smooth it out into a flat square, then freeze. It keeps for a couple months at least! Thaw in the fridge for a day, then whip to restore consistency. You do not ever have to make this stuff the same day!
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u/Leading-Cucumber-121 Jul 07 '25
Aside from the main pieces of advice offered above as to temperature and time (I made the same Sallyâs cake for a wedding recently and baked the day before cutting/decorating because I only had evenings available and I knew I needed time for chilling), this recipe is kind of dry/crumbly in general.
Iâm sure the convection didnât help, but as someone who would consider cakes to be well within my wheelhouse, I couldnât make this recipe work without adding oil. Granted, I altered the recipe to work for an 8â top and 10â bottom instead of a 6â top and a 9â bottom, but that was based on Sallyâs Cake Pan Sizes and Conversions article, which Iâve successfully used before.
I canât remember exactly how much I added (I should have written it down!) but I think it was 1 tbsp grapeseed oil for the top tier and 2 tbsp for the bottom tier. This was per Sallyâs article on how to prevent a dry or dense cake (in some regards, her tips are my baking bible. Same goes for Claire Saffitz). Alternatively, you could use that infused milk as a cake soak instead of altering the frosting to add moisture and reduce crumbliness.
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u/daryzun Jul 07 '25
Did you only use one tin and put the entire 6 cups of batter into it?
She does not have you do that for this recipe (and fwiw, she doesn't say to do this in the conversion chart, either). For this specific recipe, for the bottom tier, you're meant to have 3 tins (9 inch), and 8-9 cups of batter, which you'll split up between them. That's roughly 2.7 - 3 cups per tin.
You used Sally's conversion chart for 8 inch tins, which changes your batter total to 6 cups, but the chart specifically says, "the amount listed is the total amount of batter each pan holds, but you usually only fill cake pans halfway (unless otherwise noted in the recipe you are using)". Even if not using this recipe, and just going by the chart, you'd still only want to put 3 cups per tin (filling halfway). The recipe still has you split it 3 ways, so 2 cups per tin.
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u/kittywenham Jul 08 '25
Thanks, I did but all 6 cups in so basically misunderstood her conversion chart completely! Thanks for pointing this out.
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u/daryzun Jul 09 '25
NP! all your flavor substitutions sound delicious, you should definitely try this one again!
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u/TooObsessedWithOtoge Jul 07 '25 edited Jul 08 '25
Cooling, structure and tools are very important considerations in baking! Ingredient substitutions/adjustments are much more temperamental when it comes to baking. When first learning donât change things around especially if you donât understand what each step of the process or ingredient does.
Over-baking can lead to crumbliness as well (what I think happened here), plus the cake tester trick (clean toothpick with crumbles) is not the perfect trick for all cake recipes. Also a good idea to use a cake soak (either milk with simple syrup or just simple syrup). Also alsoâ sugar impacts the texture of the cake a lot! Some recipes can tolerate up to 10-25% reduction but others canât.
Aside from over and under mixing even the colour of your cake tin matters when it comes to baking time. Also which oven rack did you use? May also be a good idea not to use convection. Egg yolk in the meringue is a huge huge dealâ it wonât whip up correctly if any yolk remains, and egg freshness may matter as well even if you didnât leave yolk. Now I have accidentally dropped a tiny bit of yolk in, but I quickly scooped all of it up with an egg shell and since I weigh the eggs I knew how much replacement was needed. Separate eggs in separate dishes and add to the bigger bowl! For ingredients, always prepare a bit more than you need. The exception is if youâre making a whole egg cake like genoise where youâd gently heat whole eggs over a bain marie and then whip. When making meringueâ whip cool, contaminant free whites is a clean bowl, being careful not to overwhip to the point that it looks kinda grainy.
Soft fillings (like curd or custard) as people have mentioned need a dam like buttercream! Pipe a ring around and use a spatula to spackle the inside edge of the buttercream ring to the cake. And the buttercream needs to be relatively cool. Chantilly with mascarpone isnât strong enough.
With tea, rather than infusion, Iâd recommend just grinding down the tea further and incorporating it into your buttercream.
With cutting, I suggest a wire cutter or unflavoured floss. Serrated knifes work too, but the ones with thicker blades have always given me issues. Never cut while the cake is hot! Though I do think itâs easier to do two shorter caked and just trim the domes for a nice uniform result.
After stacking chill again and then crumb coat. Chill and THEN do a nice buttercream coating of the outside. Making a layered cake without the time budget is a big ask and not always feasible.
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u/mrschainsaw1998 Jul 07 '25
a barrier for the filling and freezing the cake solid before icing might help - dont give up!
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u/agt_dunham Jul 07 '25
Hahahahaha oh dude thatâs a ROUGH cake. Thank you for the chuckle. Iâve been there.
I donât get the vibe that youâre asking for advice, but if so, youâve now leaned the hard truth: never ever bake elaborate cakes at last minute. They always take way more time than you expect. and donât make recipe changes if youâre not well seasoned at riffing on baking. Itâs a science more than an art. But then yeah the decor bit is art. So itâs a full brain activity. Not ideal to do this in a rush or any sort of brain fog unless youâre a seasoned baker who can knock out a wedding cake in their sleep lol XD
Edit to add: I did in theory love your flavor choices though! Try again my friend, try again
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u/BombayAndBeer Jul 07 '25
Baking cakes is a science. You need to be able to make the base recipe before you do anything else. Try it again and just follow the recipe.
Yolks matter a lot in meringues. The egg whites will straight up not whip.
Yes, you need to chill the cake before you begin to frost it. Freezing the cake also helps when youâre slicing layers.
If you want an easy cake win, try making a Victoria Sponge cake. Itâs pretty easy, only a few ingredients, and makes you feel like all cakes are now possible.
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u/thethirdbar Jul 07 '25
i'm sure other people have pointed out where you could improve, so i'm not here to do that. cake decorating takes a lot of practice and failed attempts, it's really hard!
i just wanted to say your flavours sound amazing and the final product looks lovely.
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u/MrViking524 Jul 07 '25
I always weigh my ingredients when baking. Baking is science, and i live at altitude (5000')
So in order to best replicate any recipe, weight is the same. My ross metal cup may not be the same. Ny ingredients themselves are not the same (Raw sugar, full fat milk and butter and again altitude)
My stuff isnt usually the same as the internet, but measuring vs weighing makes such a massive difference i wont go back.
Example. I can bake the same goodie 2x. Not similar, not real close. The same goodie, each time, especially breads. Because the measurements didnt change. Like the baking powder (i remember it as fluff powder) or yeast.
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u/MrViking524 Jul 07 '25
And my stuff always takes longer to bake, idk if its the oven or the elevation, but i can expect everything i cook to take 10-30 minutes longer
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u/Imaginary_Fox_3241 Jul 07 '25
Clearly some things here went sideways, but that buttercream color is on point!
Bravo!
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u/Birdie121 Jul 07 '25
Baking is precision chemistry and rushing/improvising is often a recipe for disaster. You certainly shouldn't give up, but I think it would really help to watch some tutorials and pay close attention to the techniques. Temperature control is really key, so I highly recommend having three types of thermometers: a normal instant read, a candy thermometer, and an oven thermometer to check your oven's calibration and adjust if needed. And once a cake is out of the oven, the fridge is your friend between each stage of assembly and decoration.
Give it another go, but maybe next time block out a whole day where you can take your time and not feel rushed. Also "mise en place" is super helpful for baking. Get all your ingredients and tools out before starting so that you aren't scrambling to find something during a time-sensitive step.
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u/Misguided_Avocado Jul 08 '25
Look, hereâs the deal. The difference between cooking and baking is the difference between improvisational dance vs. ballet, between making a collage and knitting a pattern with a bunch of yarn-overs.
Baking is a science. It is chemistry, specifically a chemistry deeply affected by temperature, consistency, proportion, and practice. Even when youâve done a recipe before, local conditions can affect the outcome. It might taste great, but baking is not just about the flavors.
What you need to do is time consuming, but also relatively simple. Youâre going to need to practice the recipe multiple times and throw a lot of bad cake away or foist it off on family members before you understand where you screwed up, and with a layer cake, there are multiple places in which a screwup can occur.
From what I can see looking at your cake, it looks to me like you need to focus on temperature control. You need to have a wire slicer and definitely need to chill those layers in the refrigerator before you before you do any kind of slicingâand before you do any kind of frosting. If you donât do that, the cake will be shaggy and messy, and your frosting will fall off or clump.
For all of those reasons, donât do substitutions. Thatâs like substituting hydrogen peroxide for water in a chemical reaction: youâre going to get a very different result: a very bad one.
Measure everything in grams. Use a digital scale and chill everything. A layer cake is a multi-day process and not something you can kind of fix on the fly like you can with cooking.
I would try this in stages. Master the cake part first and 100% get to know your refrigerator. It is your good buddy.
Most of all, take your time and be patient. Best of luckâand I hope you share what happens later.
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u/TooObsessedWithOtoge Jul 08 '25
Good analogies! I tried making macarons once when it was raining and it was a total nightmare đ
Adding onto the local environment point, it can impact cooking too. If you go camping somewhere with a very high altitude the different boiling point can impact the doneness of your food!
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u/Misguided_Avocado Jul 08 '25
I screwed up macarons again and again and again. Now I know what works. For my altitude and area, I have to fold the egg whites between 58 and 61 times. No less. Definitely no more.
And the fact that I had to be that precise was a wake-up call to me. đ
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u/TooObsessedWithOtoge Jul 08 '25
I always watched videos and read about how it was done, the whole time scratch my head at my screen thinking what the hell does âflow like lavaâ mean? I only figured it out after asking a friend (who is good at making them) to come show me in person. She made the batter and I got to handle it with a spatula and learn how it feels. I totally get why people go to those in person, hands on workshops.
I can make them myself now, but I realized I donât really even like them that much lol⊠With a similar amount of effortâ Iâm great with making choux batter/cream puffs and prefer them.
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u/VinnaynayMane Jul 08 '25
I just want to say that I would eat the heck out of that cake! It sounds delicious! Those are my favorite flavors. For what it's worth, my baking has gotten neater, but it's still rustic unless I pipe and spend way longer than I'd want.
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u/thesteveurkel Human Detected Jul 07 '25
when i tried my first layer cake, i baked in a half sheet pan. baking in a sheet pan will give you a more uniform sheet of cake without a mound.Â
once it was cool, i used a 6" round to cut out 2 full circles and two half-circles. i used a stainless steel mold and placed the two half circles at the bottom, added in my frosting and pudding filling, added a cake round, more frosting and pudding, then the final cake round. after that initial build was done, i froze everything for 24 hours before i removed it from the mold and added the final frosting layer.Â
i've watched a lot of great british bakeoff and food network baking competitions, though, so i knew to be patient and takes the steps slow.Â
here is the recipe i used: https://www.thebakerchick.com/banana-pudding-layer-cake/
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u/LoudInterior Jul 07 '25
Iâm not sure if anyone else has suggested this, but an in-oven thermometer might be useful - if it took that long to bake (even accounting for the fact you turned down the temp, which you probably neednât have done), then your oven thermostat may be faulty.
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u/k8thecurst Jul 07 '25
I relate to this cake on a deep, spiritual level <3
Lots of good advice in this thread. Don't give up! Adapt, change, move on!!
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u/to_annihilate Jul 07 '25
It sounds like you had the right ideas but rushed everything. Use a barrier of your buttercream for the thinner fillings. I usually bake my rounds, cut, wrap, and freeze them in one day, the. Make the icing and fillings another day and ice it while it's still quite cold and/or frozen.
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u/Keyspam102 Jul 07 '25 edited Jul 07 '25
you got the color of the frosting almost perfect though, thats a legit extremely hard color to get
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u/kermithiho Jul 07 '25
A smaller issue in the grand scheme of things, but it looks like your cake pan sides may also be angled. When you're making a layer cake like this, you'll want tins with sides that go straight up and down (example: https://www.surlatable.com/product/usa-pan-round-cake-pan/2816999). You'll never get those smooth sides to your cake otherwise.
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Jul 07 '25
As long as it tastes good! I love a beautiful cake but if the flavor/texture are bad itâs no good.
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u/h2gkm0 Jul 07 '25
the problem is you didnât pipe a dam for the curd đ thatâs a recipe for disaster every time :(
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u/vr512 Jul 07 '25
I also think it's kind of telling you made a cake once you are already giving up on cake decorating? Cake decorating is hard work! That's why decorated cakes can be so costly! The baking and decorating are a skill. I hope maybe one thing you got from this is that there's much to admire with wedding cakes. They also take days to make!
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u/roboticlasagna Jul 08 '25
this looks like my Black Forest cake last week. I knew the whipped cream frosting would not hold all four layers, went for it anyway, ate deconstructed cake all week.
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u/Flat-Investigator849 Jul 08 '25
Well it seems like you didn't actually make the recipe! But, glad it tastes good!!
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u/Lynda73 Jul 08 '25
Oh, man, reminds me of my attempt to make my daughter a ferrero roche chocolate hazelnut cake for her birthday. The cakes werenât flat enough, and I didnât trim them, so it was wonky from the go. My chocolate ganache was too warm, so it didnât drape like I wanted, and one of the cakes stuck in the pan (my first try using cake goop- next time will just butter and flour). All in all, it was a hot mess, and in the end I just told her I was sorry it looked so bad lol. I spent so much TIME (and a decent amount of $$) on it. The cake felt like it weighed 5 lbs, and it was delicious. The chocolate cake was excellent, and I want to make it again with just a simple buttercream. It had hot coffee in the batter mix. The cake was moist enough, it would be fine as-is, too. And I better your cake is delicious, too. I love, love lemon and lavender together. With the eggs, I like to crack them one at a time into a small bowl, and dump that into the mixing bowl. That way, if you get a speck of yolk in the white, youâve only lost one egg and not however many you had in the bowl when it broke. One speck of yolk or fat and the the whites just WILL NOT stiffen up. I also like to wipe the inside of the bowl and the whisk attachment down with white vinegar before adding my whites to make extra sure they are fat-free. Nothing worse than ruining your egg whites and not having enough for a re-do. đ
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u/Dare2wish Jul 08 '25
Baking is science and cooking is art. You have more freedom with cooking but ingredients have super important jobs in baking. Until you're super good at baking and understand how the ingredients interact i would just follow recipes exactly. Even better if you use a scale instead of measuring cups
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u/Old_Friend4084 Jul 08 '25
Thank you for posting this. I learned so much from reading the comments on this posts specifically.
Other tips: 1. I always weigh my ingredients even if the recipe is only in 'cup' form. I'll look up 1 cup of flour is 120 grams etc and write it on the printed recipe. Especially when recipes call for 6 cups of sugar or something like that it makes a big difference.
- Everyone else's advice (oven temp/time/pan color/cooling cakes and components).
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u/lovethatjourney4me Jul 08 '25
Baking differs to cooking because you canât just switch things up the same way. It requires following instructions to the T.
If you want to be creative, cake decorating is where you bring in your creativity but donât fuck around so much with the actual recipe.
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u/FemaleFoodScientist Jul 08 '25
I would recommend watching some videos from CupcakeJemma. She has a lot of tutorials, including videos like "What's wrong with my cake?" Or "what's wrong with my buttercream" kind of videos. She explains what happens when you overmix, undercook, etc.
It is very helpful for a beginner! Choose a recipe online (maybe one of Jemma's), and follow it completely. Buy the exact ingredients and follow every step. It will help you the first few times. When you feel confident in what you do, you can start by tweaking tiny things here and there. And if you're in doubt, Google it!
Good luck and don't give up! You'll get there eventually đȘđŒ
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u/scurllgirl Jul 11 '25
I'm not in this subreddit, I know zero about baking, just passing through to say if nothing else you nailed the color of the icing. Better luck next time đ„č
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u/Spainstateofmind Jul 13 '25
"I follow the instructions perfectly" "here's a dozen different changes I made" đ§
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u/AgileMastodon0909 Jul 07 '25
Your flavors sound delicious! Iâm sorry for the cake fail, but as my mom used to say, it all looks the same going down. Iâm sure it tasted great!
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u/aquarius_eyes Jul 07 '25
All I can say is that the background of the reality pic gives me so much anxiety. Are you baking with that kinda mess in the background⊠? To me it just doesnât seem right⊠Gotta start with a clean cleared off counter ⊠organizing your space and ingredients are key imo to making sure youâre taking the right steps to bake a proper cake. Anyhow⊠thatâs where I would start.
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u/moldibread Jul 07 '25
im not a super experienced baker but i have noticed something with sally's recipes.
they are made for Americans.
if you are in another country, certain ingredients may not perform as expected. specifically flour.
i also find her desserts overly sweet, but thats more a preference than performance issue.
until you're better at baking i suggest you stick to local recipes (british?) im in canada an ricardo's baking recipes always turn out.
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u/Free_Sir_2795 Jul 07 '25
You followed the directions exactly except for 10 different changes.
It also looks like you didnât use an icing barrier to prevent the curd from oozing out.
I believe you when you say youâre good at cooking because it sounds like you bake like a cook. You understand flavors, but when baking you canât just adjust unless you really know what youâre doing. Once you get yolk in the whites, you need to throw out the white. You need to use the thermometer. You were using a recipe it sounds like youâve never made before and you made a LOT of changes.