Re: Baking - The Beginners Guide
Masi, the temperature you are baking on is too high and you are over cooking the cake.
I find this happens a lot in Gas ovens. I have a gas oven and this is what was happening to my cakes.
Gas ovens can be really tempermental. It will say 350 on the knob, but if you buy even a cheapie thermometer and put it in the oven, you will notice that it is actually above 400 degrees. So what I do now is bake my cakes just over 300 degrees and I bake it for slightly longer than one hour. They rarely rise now and there are no cracks. When this happens, I don't need to slice a top off to make it even before decorating.
I don't know if this happens in Electric ovens as well. Maybe someone else can let us know.