Many years ago, I was given a copy of Delia Smith's updated Cakes. I'm a Delia-fan over a Mary Berry-fan, but probably more because my mother had Delia's How to Cook series, plus various other Delia recipe books, in the kitchen when I was growing up. Probably she has the original Cakes book.
But in the updated version, Delia writes of the Tyranny of Tins. Of the difficulty in finding the right sized tins. So many are over-sized - 9" or 10" - and so many ever so not the size stated, or too shallow to properly encourage rising, especially for sponge layer cakes. However, she joined forces with Silverwood to create a 12-tin range of the correct sizes for all her cakes.
Being unable then to justify replacing cake tins, I pretty much ignored the page and moved on to the recipes. My cake tins - a set of three springforms, each a different size, plus a random fourth, again a different size - would suffice. They'd seen me through university, they'd see me through Delia's recipes. And any others.
A decade later, having muddled my way through flat cakes (because my tins are all too big for whichever recipe I'm making) and tiered layer cakes (because of course none of my tins are the same size), I finally decided enough was enough. I wanted, firstly, proper layer cake tins, and secondly, tins whose size I knew, and which I knew to be roughly right for my recipes.
I wanted 20cm/8" cake tins, because I had it in my head that was the size Delia used for most of her recipes. It seems a reasonable size for a cake: not too big and not too small. The smallest of my springform tins is just over 8", about 21 or 22 cm, so I kept that one and sent the rest to a charity shop.
Being still unable to justify Delia's Silverwood range, I had to look elsewhere. Could I find such cake tins? Could I heck!
Not Hobbycraft, Dunelm, IKEA. I wanted to avoid buying them online, so I could properly evaluate the tin before buying. To make sure it was the size it said it was. Dunelm does, it's true, have 20cm/8" loose-bottomed deep tins and springform tins (so I may yet replace the springform tin as well). But not the layer cake tins.
In the end I plumped for three 19cm/7.5" tins (Dunelm). They're a smidge short of the 4cm depth that Delia says is required for encouraging rising, but they worked when I tested them this week.
And then I realised that Delia's sponge cakes actually call for 18cm/7" tins. Hum.
But in her page on the Tyranny of Tins, she does also say that an 18cm/7" tin requires a 2-egg sponge recipe and a 20cm/8" tin a 3-egg sponge recipe. I'd prefer to slightly overfill than to slightly underfill my tins, so now I just have to remember that my tins are a 3-egg sponge. At least when it's a two-layer cake. I'm not sure how many I'd need if I used all three tins.
And now I just need to work out non-layer cakes.
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