Please tell me what went wrong with my cake recipe why was it so heavy? ingredients are...?

2 eggs


150g butter


300g flour (self rising)


50g plain flour


2 tbls spoons vanilla


30g cocoa


180g sugar


2 caps of brandy





made a layer cake but it came out very heavy and even a little crunchy around the edges WHY???


more eggs? no plain flour?





2) Also what do i need more of to make my cake nice and fluffy? i notice when i put fruit in my cake it ends up fluffy but without it its not??Please tell me what went wrong with my cake recipe why was it so heavy? ingredients are...?
Add





2tsp baking powder


2 eggs (making 4 in total)


75g more butter


10tbsp milk








Remove





50g plain flour








Bake @ 160C for 50 mins





Cooking it too quick doesn't allow the cake to rise properly.





http://www.cakebaker.co.uk/MakingThePerf鈥?/a>Please tell me what went wrong with my cake recipe why was it so heavy? ingredients are...?
Ive always used the same recipe as well as my mum 8oz SR Flour, 8oz Castor Sugar, 8oz Stork SB and 4 eggs no matter what I do with it I just use the same basic recipe and I never have problems.Its all in the beating so I can add cocoa/water fruit colouring you name it.
Part of the problem is the self rising flour. Because it already has ingredients in it to rise the cake, the flour is denser. Add to that the cocoa, which has a tendency to dry any mixture. To get a fluffy cake you really need to have cake flour....even regular flour will make a fluffy cake so long as it is sifted at least twice...once by itself and once when you add the salt/baking powder/soda/salt to it. The reason is....flours have different amounts of gluten in them. Bread flour the highest, cake flour the lowest. While gluten is important for bread, its deadly to a moist cake.


Another problem I can see with the recipe is there isn't enough liquid. That'ss why your cakes seem fluffier when you add fruit. In the baking, the fruits release their juices as well as their sugars, which then break down into liquids. Admittedly, not much, but still enough, of a different kind (sucrose fluid is very thin) that it moistens the cake.


The crunch? That could be due to either baking too long, too high a temperature, too much fats used to coat the pan against sticking, or even putting it on a lower shelf in your oven. Generally, middle is best, and I always set my timer for ten minutes less than the recommended cooking time, then adjust after I test.


You might try adding a little boiling water to your cake mixture before you pan it. A half cup would do.
Try separating your eggs. Add in the yolks when the recipe calls for it, then when it's completely mixed, whip your egg whites to stiff peaks and gently fold into the batter before placing it in the cake pans and baking it.
Did you overbeat it? Or over cook the cake?
What you said about the fruit in your cake making it come out fluffy and without it it's not, tells me there is baking soda in your self-rising flour. Baking soda needs an acid to activate it and your fruit did it. So, if you don't want fruit in your cake, add a little sour milk (milk with about 1 tsp lemon juice in it). That will activate the soda and make your cake do what it did when you added fruit.





By a little sour milk, I mean at most between 1/8 and 1/4 c milk. The liquid in the milk will cook off so it won't be soupy.





Hope that helps.