How do I know when a cake is baked?

Every oven, tin and batter depth changes the bake time, so the stated time is a rough guide. Doneness has visible physical signs, and checking them takes ten seconds.

What you'll need

• Skewer, cocktail stick or thin knife

Step by step

1. Start checking five minutes before the recipe's earliest time.It costs nothing to look. Overbaking is far more common than underbaking and far less recoverable.
2. Insert a skewer into the deepest part of the centre.The centre is the last part to cook. Testing near the edge gives a false pass.
3. Read what comes out.Clean or a few dry crumbs means done. Wet batter means it needs longer. Sticky streaks mean a few more minutes.
4. Press the top lightly with a fingertip.A baked sponge springs back. If the dent stays, the structure has not set.
5. Look at the edges.A finished cake shrinks very slightly away from the sides of the tin. A cake still touching all round usually needs longer.
6. Listen if you are unsure.Hold it close to your ear — a cake still cooking makes a faint crackling sound from evaporating moisture.
7. If the top is browning too fast, cover loosely with foil and continue.This lets the centre finish without burning the surface, and it is a normal thing to do rather than a rescue.

Tips

• Rich, dense cakes and brownies are meant to test slightly sticky. Follow the recipe's description for those rather than aiming for a bone-dry skewer.
• A digital probe reading 96-99°C in the centre is a very accurate doneness test for sponges if you want certainty.
• Cheesecakes are the exception — they should still wobble in the centre when you take them out, and they set as they cool.

Common mistakes

• Testing at the edge — The edge is done long before the middle, so a clean skewer there tells you nothing.
• Opening the oven repeatedly in the first half — Each opening drops the temperature and risks collapsing a cake that has not set.
• Baking to the maximum stated time by default — That figure allows for slow ovens. Testing early and stopping at the first clean skewer keeps the cake moist.

Questions people ask