Why did my cake burn on the outside and stay raw inside?

This is a heat-transfer problem rather than a recipe problem. Heat moves inwards from the surface, so anything that makes the surface too hot, or the journey too long, produces the same result.

Safety

Step by step

1. Check what temperature the oven is actually reaching.Domestic ovens are commonly 20°C or more out, and they drift over the years. An oven thermometer costs very little and is the single most useful thing to establish before adjusting anything else.
2. Drop the temperature and extend the time.10-20°C lower and 10-20 minutes longer. Rich, dense and deep cakes want a gentler heat for longer, which is the opposite of what impatience suggests.
3. Move the cake down a shelf.The top of an oven is hotter, and in a conventional oven the difference is substantial. Middle or lower-middle for cakes, and use the shelf position the recipe states rather than whichever is free.
4. Protect the outside with a collar.Brown paper or a double layer of baking parchment tied around the outside of the tin, standing proud of the rim. Standard practice for fruit cakes and worth doing for anything over about 20cm or baking longer than an hour.
5. Cover the top once it has coloured.A loose sheet of foil over the tin once the surface is the colour you want. It stops further browning while the centre carries on cooking.
6. Reconsider the tin.A deep narrow tin takes far longer for heat to reach the middle than a wide shallow one. If a recipe calls for two 18cm tins, one 18cm tin of the same mixture will do exactly this.
7. Check the tin material.Dark and non-stick tins absorb more heat and brown the outside faster. A lighter-coloured or heavier tin gives more even results; a thin dark one needs a lower temperature.
8. Turn the fan setting down.Fan ovens circulate hot air and brown surfaces faster. Most recipes assume conventional heat, so drop about 20°C for fan — and check whether your oven has already done that for you.
9. Do not put the mixture in cold from the fridge.A cold mixture takes longer to heat through, so the outside has more time to over-colour before the centre sets. Room temperature ingredients throughout.
10. Test properly rather than by colour.A skewer into the centre should come out clean or with a few dry crumbs. Colour tells you about the surface only, which is exactly the thing that has misled you here.
11. Salvage what you have.Cut away the raw centre and use the cooked outer ring as a base for a trifle, or cube and layer it. Returning a cooled cake to the oven does not work — the outside burns before the middle catches up.

Tips

• An oven thermometer left in permanently is more useful than one used once. Ovens drift, and knowing yours runs hot is knowledge you use every time.
• If cakes brown unevenly as well, rotate the tin halfway through — but only after the structure has set, roughly three-quarters of the way through.
• A skewer that comes out clean at the edge tells you nothing. Test the exact centre, which is the last part to cook.

Common mistakes

• Trusting the oven dial — Domestic ovens are routinely 20°C or more out and drift with age. Every other adjustment is guesswork until you know the real temperature.
• Turning the heat up because it is taking too long — It cooks the outside faster without helping the middle, which is precisely how this happens. Lower and longer is the fix.

If it doesn't work

Questions people ask