Baking Help, Please!

[boxtops]

As some of you know, I've started baking, with mixed success.

I have just made some brownies, but although the cake is beautifully cooked on the outside and round the edges, it's still uncooked in the middle/bottom - so I have to turn it out of the tins and finish it off upside down, to cook the middle base.

What am I doing wrong? I have two ovens - a small electric job, and a fan/convection oven. The outcome's the same in both, although the convection gives a somewhat better result.

[EcclesCake]

I don't have a microwave/combi so I can't advise on that method.

I'd stick with the belling but reduce the heat a tad.

[EDDIE51]

Well those Baby Belling table top ovens are notorious for having inaccurate thermostats. Is it the model where the temperature indicator is a pointer in a dial on the door? The other 'oven' you have is really no more than a grill with a thermostat. Sorry, but you really need to get a conventional oven to do any successful baking. The suggestion to put a layer of foil over the cake is a good one, it may work by shielding the cake from direct radiant heat. Try it but reduce the temperature setting and increase the time. Brownies are as you have been told actually meant to be slightly moist and 'gooey' .

[boxtops]

Hi Eddie - yes it's a pointer thermostat.....

I'll persevere for the time being, adjusting the heat. I don't have a proper cooker, we make do with the electric wok and the steamer and the slow cooker and the combi oven - I've never been interested in cooking, and the kit we have at the moment has been quite adequate for the last ten years - but a proper cooker is now on the horizon!

[EDDIE51]

A standard oven would do the job of all of those and do it better.

[Trefoil1]

Oven too hot I have elarnt by trial and erro to reduce my fan oven by 40 degrees from the recipe instructions.

[boxtops]

Thanks, trefoil - I also bought an oven thermoment, which suggests that the over temperatures aren't as hot as it suggests on the dials.

[fairycakes69]

Do you take it out the tin as soon as you've taken it out the oven? With brownies you need to leave them in the tin to cool, that way the bottom and middle will firm up. Took me a while to get it right as like you I would flip and bake for longer. Sponge cakes need to be taken out the tin as soon as they come out the oven.

[boxtops]

Ah - thanks fairy, will remember for next time!