Why is my cake pale and did not brown?

The colour on a cake crust comes from the Maillard reaction between sugars and protein, plus some straightforward caramelisation of the sugar itself. Both need real heat at a dry surface. Anything that keeps the top cool or wet — a cool oven, a very wet batter, a tin that reflects heat, a foil cover left on — leaves the cake pale even when it is cooked through. Pale is a cosmetic fault most of the time, but it is also a useful signal that the oven is not doing what the dial claims.

What you'll need

• An oven thermometer

Step by step

1. Confirm the cake was actually cooked.A pale cake that is also wet in the middle is an undercooked cake, and that is a different problem — see `rebake-an-underdone-cake`. Colour and doneness are separate; a cake can be perfectly baked and completely pale.
2. Put a thermometer in the oven and check it against the dial.Leave it on a middle shelf for twenty minutes at the set temperature. Domestic ovens are commonly out by ten to thirty degrees and they drift as they age. This is by far the most likely answer. See `check-oven-temperature`.
3. Look at the tin.Glass, ceramic and silicone conduct heat far more slowly than metal, and pale shiny aluminium reflects it. A dark, dull metal tin browns hardest. See `cake-tin-material-changes-the-bake`.
4. Check the shelf position.In a conventional oven, moving up a shelf increases top colour and moving down increases base colour. In a fan oven the difference is smaller but still real.
5. Consider the batter itself.Very wet batters, low-sugar recipes, and cakes made with a lot of egg white and no yolk all brown less because they are short of the ingredients the reaction needs. Milk and egg wash add both protein and sugar.
6. Take off the cover.Foil put on to stop the top burning, or a lid left on a lidded tin, blocks colour entirely and traps steam against the surface. If you cover a long bake, do it after the top has taken colour, not before.

Tips

• A brush of milk over the top before baking adds both protein and lactose, and is the simplest way to add colour to a pale sponge without changing anything else.
• Demerara or a light sprinkle of caster sugar on top browns and gives a crisp lid at the same time.
• Sponges baked deliberately pale — Victoria sponge, angel cake — are meant to be. Do not chase colour on a cake that is traditionally pale.
• If the cake is pale and the base is burnt, the problem is the tin or the shelf, not the temperature. See `stop-baked-goods-sticking-or-burning`.

Common mistakes

• Leaving it in longer to get colour — By the time a cool oven has browned the top, the crumb is dry all the way through. Fix the heat, not the time.
• Using the grill to brown the top — A grill browns in seconds and burns in a few more, and it does nothing for a cake that is otherwise finished. It is also a fire risk with a fat-rich crumb.

If it doesn't work