Scratch cakes crumbling when sliced

Pound cakes tend to be firmer. There’s a well known recipe for cream cheese pound cake (or sometimes whipping cream pound cake) which you can Google which is quite tasty. Victoria sponge type cakes are always quite crumbly in my experience unless you overbake them, at which point they’re all dried out and not very nice. Hth x

If you want a great chocolate cake recipe, I use the following. It has NEVER failed me. It keeps well, cuts cleanly and is easy to carve.

1 3/4 cup flour
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup cocoa powder
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk (or buttermilk)
1/2 cup soya bean oil
1 cup strong black coffee
1 tsp vanilla extract

Blend all ingredients in a food processor and bake in a greased and lined tin at 180°c (I’m in NZ. Just convert to farenhiet) for approx 1-1 1/2 hours.

When I’m making for kids, I usually omit the coffee and just add a cup of water or make it very weak. I have also make it gluten free, and you could make it dairy free by substituting almond milk etc.

Hope this helps. Good luck!

You did not indicate the type of cake you baked from scratch and the method you used in baking. If it is a butter sponge cake – it is likely that you over-creamed your ingredients.

thanks a lot for all your replies….I did read them all earlier but was so busy with couple of cake orders that I did not get time to reply back.

Xclusive: I bake general birthday cakes, i try various recipes like Ina Garten’s Choc Cake or Joy of baking Cake recipes etc, butter based, oil based etc. When I leave them out at room temp after covering in fondant n all I see this happening. If I keep the cakes in fridge for sometime to firm up they slice up nicely. But then people give feedback that the cake is hard due to being refrigerated…so I’m kinda loosing at both ends here :) But the cakes are tasty and everyone loves the flavor.

Thanks a lot loulou14 for the awesome recipe. will definitely give it a try.

If you want to refrigerate your cake it is better to use an oil based recipe instead of butter based — then it won’t be hard when refrigerated and you’ll still get clean slices!!