Chocolate Guinness Cake With Dip In Centre

Our answer

Nigella's Chocolate Guinness Cake (from FEAST) is made by melting butter, sugar and Guinness together and then adding the dry ingredients. It does mean that the cake batter is slightly liquid and usually in this situation if the cake is sinking on cooling, it is because it is not quite fully baked in the centre. Make sure that the cake feels firm to the touch, a cake tester inserted into the centre comes out clean and the cake is slightly shrinking away from the sides of the tin.

Very occasionally non-fan ovens have fluctuations in temperature as they heat up then can cool down a little before the thermostat starts the heating cycle again. If the thermostat is old it can be slightly less efficient. This can make it more difficult to bake larger cakes with a more liquid batter and you may need to adjust the position of the shelf in the oven or find the hottest spot in the oven. Also, if you open the oven door too early this can cause the centre of the cake to collapse if it has not set. Finally, if you add too much bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) then the cake can rise up a lot during baking and then sink on cooling. Usually in this case the cake will have a wrinkled surface. Measure the bicarbonate of soda carefully with a measuring teaspoon set.