{"id":5021,"date":"2026-03-23T12:02:55","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T12:02:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ozone.me.uk\/?p=5021"},"modified":"2026-03-26T10:38:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T10:38:15","slug":"cake-temperature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ozone.me.uk\/?p=5021","title":{"rendered":"Cake Temperature"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>It started with a savoury cake. I was making an\u00a0olive-and-pancetta cake \u2014 that French-style\u00a0sal\u00e9<\/em> cake<\/span>\u00a0I have been making for years \u2014 and I found myself wondering: how do I actually know when it’s done? A skewer comes out clean long before the inside has fully set, and the colour of the crust isn’t always a reliable guide when there’s no sugar to caramelise.<\/p>\n

The answer is a probe thermometer. And once I started thinking about internal temperatures for savoury cakes, I realised I’d never applied the same logic to sweet cakes either. So here’s a guide to both.<\/p>\n

Savoury Cakes (e.g. olive & pancetta)<\/strong> Target internal temperature: 88\u00b0C \u2013 92\u00b0C<\/strong><\/p>\n

Savoury cakes behave differently from sweet ones because their structure is built on eggs and cheese rather than sugar and fat. The egg proteins need to fully set, which means you don’t want to go below around 85\u00b0C at the centre \u2014 that’s your food safety floor. But push much above 92\u00b0C, and you’ll end up with a dry, rubbery crumb, and cured meats like pancetta will toughen noticeably.<\/p>\n

One more tip: let your savoury cake rest after baking. It firms up beautifully as it cools and is almost always better eaten warm rather than piping hot straight from the oven.<\/p>\n

\n

Sweet Cakes<\/strong><\/p>\n

Different batters have different sugar and fat contents, which shifts the ideal doneness temperature more than you might expect:<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Cake Type<\/th>\nTarget Internal Temp<\/th>\nWhy?<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Standard Sponge<\/td>\n98\u00b0C \u2013 99\u00b0C<\/td>\nVictoria sponges and birthday cakes need to reach this to ensure the structure is fully stable.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Fruit Cake<\/td>\n93\u00b0C \u2013 95\u00b0C<\/td>\nVery dense cakes with heavy fruit shouldn’t go too high \u2014 the fruit sugars can begin to toughen.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Chocolate Cake<\/td>\n93\u00b0C \u2013 96\u00b0C<\/td>\nHigher moisture and oil content mean that keeping the temperature lower prevents the cocoa from tasting bitter or dry.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n
\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It started with a savoury cake. I was making an\u00a0olive-and-pancetta cake \u2014 that French-style\u00a0sal\u00e9 cake\u00a0I have been making for years \u2014 and I found myself wondering: how do I actually know when it’s done? A skewer comes out clean long … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cooking","category-home-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ozone.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ozone.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ozone.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ozone.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ozone.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5021"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ozone.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5021\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5026,"href":"https:\/\/ozone.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5021\/revisions\/5026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ozone.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ozone.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ozone.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}