So why do my homemade cakes always turn out like crap?

Having never cooked with American ingredients or recipes, I can't comment on conversions or differences in cake outcomes using US vs. UK recipes, but I have been making cakes in the UK since I was a kid, so have a couple of thoughts regarding types of flour etc. :

1) I have never made a cake using plain flour. I have used recipes that required plain flour + baking powder for rising, but I don't think they were cake recipes. I was taught by my mum and also at school that if I was making anything that was supposed to rise (i.e. cakes, muffins etc.), I needed to use self-raising flour.

2) If you do switch to self-raising flour, I don't know if you would need the baking powder as well. My instinct would be no, because the self-raising flour already has the extra ingredient in it for rising, but I'm not sure if the quantities would be the same for a US recipe.

Why does choosing flour and sugar in this country have to be so HARD!? They think we have too many choices in the US!

3) Maybe it's just because I was born and raised here, but I didn't realise there was anything to be confused about flour-wise. For me, it's self-raising flour for cakes/muffins and plain flour for almost everything else - unless the recipe calls for a specific type of flour - but we only keep plain and self-raising flour at home and they seem to be suitable for just about all our cooking needs.

ksand24, in the US we have all-purpose flour (sort of like plain flour here - I guess?), bread flour, cake flour, and I think we have the self-raising flour too (??).  I think there also may be a pastry flour.  Anything I've left off, anyone?

US normal sugar is more like caster sugar here, I think -- at least it's a finer grind.

Thanks for all the tips everyone!

Well, we couldn't wait for after dinner -- so we went ahead and had birthday cake & ice cream already.  It's best to get these things out of the way so you don't fill up on healthy food first, and then not have room - you know.

It was really all right - taste-wise.  Just a little flat & dense.  Maybe my expectations are just too lofty?

I think double acting baking powder would only make a big difference if you left a batter to sit for a while.  Double acting means it reacts once upon mixing with a liquid (so the acid is able to mix with the soda) and again when it's heated.  I *think* that volume for volume double and single acting powders will generate the same amount of gas.

And we have the same number of flour choices in the US - the self-raising/rising was probably just hidden in a small bag on the very top shelf unless you were down south.  Strong=bread, plain kind of = all purpose*, sponge=cake flour + baking powder

*In the US all purpose flour has a fair bit of gluten.  You'd get a reasonable, although not great, result using it for bread or dough recipes.  There is such a tiny amount of gluten in the UK flour that you must use strong flour for those types of things.  The upside is that there's far less risk of overworking things like pie crusts and biscuits using UK plain flour. 

Also, Alton Brown's chewiest chocolate chip cookie recipe (he has about 3, each catering to different tastes) uses bread flour in the US to make them extra chewy.

(I posted at the same time as you Mrs_R)

I hate self-raising flour. I don't know why, but it always tastes funny to me. I never use it - I always add my own raising agents. But that's just me.

I was a really good baker back in the US, but I'm scared to try anything here yet!  At least you are adventurous enough to try.  Maybe you can tell me all your secrets once you've got if figured out! 

The out-of-date baking powder may well be the culprit, but I also remember someone posting over in the Nestle Tollhouse thread about flour conversions - using more if you're using plain flour, or using strong white bread flour instead.  I tried the latter when I made my last batch of cookies the other day and the difference was incredible!

I agree with Meg--the problem is probably not having enough flour. I don't make cakes much, but I make lots of muffins, occasional cookies, and random other things, and getting the correct conversion for flour has made my life MUCH happier. The conversions are on the Tollhouse thread, and I also posted them on the Just Do It cooking thread. I don't double the baking powder, and it doesn't give me any trouble.

I just made a batch of sopaipillas (a NM fried quick bread thing) last night using a US recipe, which happened to call for 2 cups of flour, just like your cake recipe. According to my conversion chart, the equivalent is 340 g of UK plain flour, which is 12 oz rather than the 9 oz given in the recipe. That's a big difference! (And my sopaipillas came out perfect. )

See I wondered about that, but I was wondering if the strong white bread flour is more glutenous (what makes it 'strong') & do you want that sort of quality for a cake - if you know what I mean?  So then I thought maybe I should have just used the self-rising stuff -- is that more like what we'd call 'cake flour' in the US?

All about different types of US flour:
http://www.joyofbaking.com/flour.html

To summarize, you don't want bread flour for a cake, and cake flour is a different beast from self-rising.

I never use the self-rising flour because the one time I did the cake turned out flat and heavy.  I attributed this to the flour being old and therefore the rising agents in the flour as having lost their oomph.  If you want to substitute plain flour for self rising the conversion is 2 tsp baking powder to 1 cup flour.  However if you believe like I do that the baking powder here isn't as strong then 3 - 4 tsp per cup of flour.

You may also want to try sifting your flour several times.   With the dampness here the flour tends to be heavy and by sifting it you incorporate air into it.

I agree with Meg--the problem is probably not having enough flour. I don't make cakes much, but I make lots of muffins, occasional cookies, and random other things, and getting the correct conversion for flour has made my life MUCH happier. The conversions are on the Tollhouse thread, and I also posted them on the Just Do It cooking thread. I don't double the baking powder, and it doesn't give me any trouble.

I'm going to try another batch of cookies tonight or tomorrow with plain flour, using your conversions - maybe they'll be even better than this batch!

Thanks everyone!  Lots of good advice here, if I can keep it all straight in my little addled brain.

Well the boys (men) at Steve's office really liked the cake.  One asked Steve if he was planning to divorce me anytime soon, maybe he could...

I'm going to try another batch of cookies tonight or tomorrow with plain flour, using your conversions - maybe they'll be even better than this batch!

Hope it works for ya! I made some cookies a couple of weeks ago using the conversion, and they were lovely. They're also gone, harumph.  

...and cake flour is a different beast from self-rising.

Oh yeah!  I wanted to ask about this.  So can we even get cake flour here (UK)?  I don't remember ever seeing it in the grocery stores here.

I can't make a cake to save my life.  My DD's first birthday cake I made ended up like 2 layers of pancakes and twice as much icing as cake to make it look more substantial.  The pictures are tragic. 

I bake cakes from scratch using recipes from the U.S. and just use strong flour here, the recipe called for all purpose at home and they came out fine and normal sized.

Hope it works for ya! I made some cookies a couple of weeks ago using the conversion, and they were lovely. They're also gone, harumph.  

MY COOKIES TURNED OUT AMAZING!!! 

Seriously.  If my camera's batteries weren't dead, I'd take a photo and post it.  PERFECTION!

*dances madly*

MY COOKIES TURNED OUT AMAZING!!! 

Seriously.  If my camera's batteries weren't dead, I'd take a photo and post it.  PERFECTION!

*dances madly*

Hip hip hooray!!!

Oh yeah!  I wanted to ask about this.  So can we even get cake flour here (UK)?  I don't remember ever seeing it in the grocery stores here.

In my searches yesterday I seem to vaguely recall something about "fine plain flour" which was supposed to be more or less equivalent to cake flour? Never seen it, but I haven't looked either, and I'm not exactly in the grocery mecca of the UK... That said, I've only rarely used cake flour for US cakes--usually just plain ol' all-purpose.