How to use the online timer
Forty minutes covers a standard sponge in a round tin, which is the cake most likely to be made for a birthday, a school bake sale, or a Friday when the weather outside makes staying in with the oven on seem reasonable. Loaf tins run longer, cupcakes far shorter, and a deeper tin of the same mixture can want another ten minutes without any warning from the recipe.
Leave the door shut for the first two-thirds. A rush of cool air into a rising cake collapses it, and the temptation to look is strongest at exactly the wrong moment. Use the count to hold your nerve, then check with a skewer through the centre. Since the countdown lives in this tab, keep the page open on the side rather than closing it while you clear up.
Tin size changes everything and is the most common reason a recipe fails in somebody else's kitchen. The same batter in a wider tin bakes faster and drier; in a narrower one it takes longer and can sink. Most domestic ovens also have a hot corner, so turning the tin once, late in the bake, evens out a lopsided rise.
Common questions
When can I open the oven door?
Not in the first two-thirds. Cool air rushing in while a cake is still rising will collapse it. Wait until the last stretch, then test with a skewer through the centre rather than by eye.
Does the tin size change the time?
Considerably. The same batter in a wider tin bakes faster and drier, and in a deeper one takes noticeably longer. It is the most common reason a recipe behaves differently in somebody else's kitchen.
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