Cake Wont' Rise Mystery...

[Dommy]

A poster on my fashion board has been fighting this mystery for years... perhaps the hounds have some answers... Here's her post...

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Old family recipe. Works in all the family ovens BUT mine. All ovens are electric BUT mine. Used tube pan in moms oven; it works. Used tube pan in my oven; middle of cake never cooked. It was a ring of cooked cake around batter. Made same cake in seperate cake pans; same thing happend. Here are ingredients:

cake mix
3/4 cup oil
3/4 cup fresh OJ
orange zest (3 tabl)
4 eggs

What is wrong? This cake is made all over the US and Europe and everyone can do it EXCEPT ME!!!!! Is it the gas oven?

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My first thought is all that oil and the Eggs... but wonder if anyone else some idea...

--Dommy!

[hbgrrl]

I would think that her oven isn't up to temp. She cooks it for the alloted time, but starts it in a cold (or not to temp) oven. And, if she is (and is sure the temp is calibrated) it's the fresh o.j. that's killing the baking powder.

[ptrefler]

gas, electric shouldn't matter. I would have to agree with most of the above - have you calibrated the oven? If the oven temperature is far higher than it is supposed to be it would cook the outside before the inside. When you cooked it in two cake pans, I assume the sides cooked, but the top should have formed a crust and then been soggy inside. This would happen if the oven was far too hot. If you are not getting a crust on the top at all, I would think about the ingredients. 3/4 cup of orange juice is a lot of acid for a cake - made out of a cake mix that would normally require you add no additional acidic ingredients. Does it rise?

[Kishari]

I agree with the above post. Sounds like the gas oven hasn't been calibrated for a while, especially if the ingredients work for everyone else.

And if the cake is consistently done on the outside first, the hotspots are on the sides of the oven. Bad for cake. Magic Strips are good once the oven temp is correct.

[Robert Lauriston]

Other cakes work fine in the same oven? You're not at a high altitude?

You might want to buy or borrow an oven thermometer to check your oven's thermostat.

If you're substituting fresh orange juice for canned, the extra acid might be zapping the baking power in the cake mix.