Safety of cake in oven with faulty thermostat
My new apartment's electric oven has a faulty thermostat. I made a cake from scratch, which took two hours to bake. Yesterday, I made a box mix cake as a gift, which took well over an hour to bake. I'm now concerned for the safety of the recipient. Is it safe to eat a cake that took so long to bake? Are the eggs in it safe? Eventually the cake cooked through, and is not raw in the middle, but I'm worried about the eggs not cooking at the correct temperature. Should I throw it out and go buy one at the bakery, or is it safe to give it as a gift?
Best Answer
First, we have to clear up a common misconception here. The safety of a food product is not the same thing as the sum of the safety of the ingredients that went into it. Neither is it the same as their minimum, nor is there any easy-to-apply rule where you arrive at the safety of the product by looking at the safety of the ingredients. You always have to regard the product as a whole, period. In that sense, egg safety has nothing to do with your situation, because you are dealing with a cake, not with eggs.
From here, you have to apply standard food safety rules for any "cooked" food (and merely mixing ingredients before cooking them counts as cooking for that definition). This means that, before you ended up with a baked cake layer, you are allowed a total of 4 hours of unrefrigerated shelf life. So if the time from starting with making the batter to the time the cake left the danger zone (= it had an internal temperature of 60 C throughout), you are safe. If you didn't use a thermometer and clock to find out the exact time your cake passed the 60 C mark, you have to go with the first moment at which you were sure that it was passed, which is the time you took the baked cake out of the oven (since being baked proves that the cake has had an internal temperature of 96 C).
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What happens to cakes if the oven is too hot?
Cakes- if the oven is too hot they will crown higher and crack usually with a peak. If the oven is too cold they will have less volume and dry out. Bread- products dry out if too cold and will have a weak crust.What will happen to our cake if we will not follow the recommended oven temperature?
Using proper oven temperature is important to allow the cake to rise before the structure sets. If the oven is too hot, the cake will set too fast before the air bubbles have formed. If the oven is not hot enough, the cake will rise too much, then fall in the center before it is set.How does temperature affect cake cooking?
Generally speaking, higher temperatures will give your bakes a more golden, crisper crust to the sponge or pastry and a low temperature will result in a fluffier, less golden sponge. With some cakes, you want a golden crust and with other cakes you want them to be gently cooked and fluffy.Why is my cake burnt on the outside and raw in the middle?
Our answer. If you find that your cakes are brown on the outside but are still raw on the inside then it is likely that the oven is too hot. Most cakes are baked at around 180c/350F/Gas Mark 4 on the middle shelf of the oven.What Does An Analog Oven Thermostat Do \u0026 How Does It Work + Bonus at End..
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Answer 2
To bake a cake, I usually have a temperature of 180 °C (360 F). Even if your temperature is lower than that, or fluctuates, this is well above boiling (100 °C) and even more above 60 °C, which is the point of protein denaturation, i.e., everything above 60 °C kills bacteria etc. I'd say the cake is safe to eat, but you should get your oven checked nonetheless, because cooking with a faulty oven is a) inconvenient and b) potentially unsafe (fire hazard)
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