I have been baking a fruit cake for my dad's birthday. I always cook fruit cakes very slowly over several hours. I am using an electric oven for the first time and it has taken over 10 hours. Now to my horror, all of the butter is seeping out of the cake mixture! I rarely cook with butter, but this is a special occasion. Help please!
2007-05-12 23:09:11 · 5 answers · asked by Dizzychem 1 in Food & Drink ➔ Other - Food & Drink
sorry i can't help, please don't take offence as i am a novice at baking cakes, it sounds like you didn't mix the butter in enough. yes i know that this is not a solution. good luck, hope you get one before the cake burns.
2007-05-12 23:18:15 · answer #1 · answered by homemanager22 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
If the seepage is very limited, don't worry about it for now: you need to get this cake cooked and out of the oven. If needs be, raise the oven temperature by 10-20% to get it finished, unmoulded, racked and cooled.
Ten hours cooking is nearly double the time a very rich fruit cake of some 16-18" diameter (around 20kg in weight) would require at the correct temperature, so something's very much amiss here. We bake these every week in some number -- extremely rich fruitcakes are very much a core part of 'what we do' -- and your figures just won't add up to lead to a happy result. To help put things right for the future, if you could drop a copy of your recipe and the tin size you used in my mail box, I'll happily take a look at it, and calculate new timings and temperatures for you, so hopefully you need not get caught like this again?
The butter as such has nothing to do with the problem: any fat exposed to such a huge period of time in very low heat would eventually be prone to do the same if the mixture had failed to be 'fixed' in the first 1-2 hours of cooking, something that an oven temperature that allowed ten hours of cooking without burning just could never likely do.
Not much of a 'good news' message, I'm sorry to say, but as soon as I've got the details from you, I'll come back to you first thing.
All the best.
2007-05-13 10:10:20 · answer #2 · answered by CubCur 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I work in a bake shop in a grocery store and my suggestion would be to just wipe the butter away, and not be concerned that it has seeped out, but you may want to check your temperature on the oven, and also make sure that the middle will be still be cooked through. Whatever happens I know it will work out for you and you dad will appreciate it! Good luck!
2007-05-13 06:16:47 · answer #3 · answered by ozzylvr13 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Check that you have followed the recipe and that the oven is at the correct temp. I always cook at a slightly higher temp for the first 15-20 mins, then turn down to the temp as indicated in the recipe. Adjust temp if you are cooking with a fan oven - fan ovens do cook more quickly.
2007-05-13 08:15:56 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
It sounds like the recipe takes way to much butter.
But a simple solution is to take a paper towel an wick up some of the butter to help eliminate the sogginess.
Tell you Dad HAPPY BIRTHDAY for me. You are a great daughter for doing such a lovely thing for him. I know he is proud.
2007-05-13 06:17:15 · answer #5 · answered by ? 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋