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asked May 14th 2016

Chocolate mud cake crumbly Help!

Hello,

I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong. When I use to make mud cakes in the past I never had a crumbling issue.

My recipe calls for 150g each P.F & S.Flour and 4 eggs.

I lined the bottom of the pan and sprayed the sides. I baked a 10″ round split into 2 pans and left in the tins to completely cool.
The plan was to split both the cakes to make a 4 layer cake, but when I turned the pan up side down part of the cake broke off and the condition of it was extremely crumbly why????

The taste was amazing but it just fell apart and would not be able to take a knife through it.

Please help me to produce a love 4 layerd cake!!

Thank you x

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accepted

The amount of sugar by which you have reduced this recipe is insignificant. The egg may have been a tad short because most medium mixed sizes are around about 50-55gms in weight. I get large mixed sizes from either my local farm or a passing supermarket. They usually weigh around 63 – 67gms each. It may be worth using slightly larger eggs. If you’re using a fan oven perhaps reduce the temperature down to 130c rather than 150c. Fan ovens are not particularly mud cake friendly!
Paul bakes at 150c non fan for 2 hours without opening the oven door. You’ll know how low or fierce your oven bakes, may be just keep an eye and nose on doneness. I wish you better success next time around. x 🙂

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Hello cakechef22

This sounds like you don’t have sufficient liquids and eggs in your recipe. You haven’t said what the other ingredients are so I can’t make adjustments for you. Have you tried alternative recipes? Paul has a lovely mosit chocolate cake recipe here:

Paul’s Firm and Moist Chocolate Cake Recipe


and I have another in my blog here:

How to Make Chocolate Mud Cake

Please let me know if this helps.

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Hello MIWL,

Thank you for getting back to me. I haven’t tried Paul’s chocolate recipe yet, i think i’ll try your one first it sounds lovely.

This is the Chocolate Mud Recipe I followed that went wrong:

10″ Round

250g Butter
250g Dark Chocolate
180ml Water
S.R Flour 150g
P. Flour 150g
Cocoa Powder 60g
Bicarb Soda 1/2 tsp
Caster Sugar 545g ( I cut it down)
x4 Eggs
Vegetable Oil 8tsp
Buttermilk 125ml (Homemade milk with fresh lemon juice)

* I always leave out the instant coffee as i’m afraid the taste will come through)

As I saw in your blog you used Sugar & Crumbs Icing Sugar. I am tempted to give their flavours a try. Are they potent and very strong flavoured?
Also have you ever replaced half caster sugar for sugar & crumbs flavourings?

Many thanks

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Hi cakechef22

The recipe which you’ve used is practically the same as Paul’s with tiny variations which would make little or possibly no difference at all. The only thing you haven’t mentioned is the size of the eggs used and the type of caster sugar. Paul uses large eggs and golden caster sugar. Also did you reduce the sugar from 545g and if so by how much? Sugar not only sweetens but also helps develop the structure of the cake. As it is hygroscopic, it attracts moisture from the other ingredients to create a soft crumb. Golden caster sugar is less refined and attract more moisture. Reducing sugar too much can cause a dry, tight texture as you have described. It is also possible that dividing the batter into two tins at too high baking temperature, especially in a fan oven, may have contributed to the cakes turning out so crumbly.
The Sugar and Crumb icing sugars do have a robust flavour. I’ve only used their orange flavour cocoa powder in the cake batter. It tastes really good. However I don’t use icing sugar in cake batter because it can produce a dry crumb. I have tried several of their icing sugar flavours for making meringue buttercream, adding to whipped cream and sprinkling over fruit. If you’d like to substitute icing sugar for regular sugar as an experiment, it would be best to try it out on a small trial cake.

Hope some of the above information helps.

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Hello MIWL,

Some very interesting facts about sugar in your comment which I didn’t know.

I used regular caster sugar. the recipes states to use 550g but instead i used 545g which isn’t much on this occasion, a posed to when i bake a vanilla sponge cake if the recipe calls for 600g sugar I will use 550g instead.

Given the facts that you stated regarding the importance of sugar I will stop getting down and stick to the recipe.

I used medium eggs of different weights.

This recipe used to work for me many years ago , and back then I never new about splitting the batter into 2 tins to achieve a four layer cake . I will try again but this time stick to the correct amounts required even add in the instant coffee, and finally bake in 1 pan at 150c Fan.

Thank for your help

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Thanks for all your help x

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