Carrot Bread. Photo for The Washington Post by Scott Suchman; food styling for The Washington Post by Lisa Cherkasky
“I made a Washington Post recipe for Carrot Bread. The flavor is excellent, but the center 2 inches was completely unbaked, even after 90 minutes in the oven (baking time was supposed to be 1 hour). My loaf pan was slightly larger than called for, but the batter filled it to about half an inch from the top. I suspect I used too much carrot.”
This was a question that came up during our weekly live chat, where we help you level up your skills in the kitchen. Problems with quick breads that are raw in the center or dipped, rather than domed, in the middle are pretty common.
Sometimes things do just need longer to bake for … whatever reason. As with any other kind of bake, the best first step to take is to weigh your ingredients. Too much or too little flour, for example, can throw off the balance.
Also important: the type of pan you use. Metal pans are by far the better choice for cakes and bars than glass. Glass is an insulator rather than a conductor and is slower to heat (and then slower to cool down), which can cause problems.
Metal is a much more efficient conductor, with some types of pans preferable to others. Heavy-gauge aluminum “transfers heat quickly and doesn’t warp or have hot spots like less expensive thin-gauge pans,” according to “The Science of Good Food.”
“Cakes should definitely go in metal,” pastry chef and cookbook author Joanne Chang told me. The slower transfer of heat to the batter means cakes baked in glass (or ceramic) will take longer than those in metal (five to eight minutes, according to a test done by Cook’s Illustrated).
So why not just leave a glass pan in the oven longer? The longer a cake, or even a batch of brownies or blondies, bakes, the more likely the edges will be overcooked – and disproportionately higher up the pan – by the time the center is done. They may continue to dry out as the pan cools, too, because of the heat retention.
How did things turn out for this reader? Glass was, in fact, the culprit. As they reported back, “I tried again using an aluminum loaf pan. I’m very happy to report that it came out perfectly. Thank you for helping to troubleshoot – and the excuse to make the carrot bread again (and again!).”
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