9 Typical Cake Baking Issues and Answers

Baking, as we all know, does not always go as planned. You set out to bake a beautiful fluffy cake, but instead you get a thick block that scarcely resembles a cake.

Alternatively, your cake seems to be flawlessly golden brown, but when you attempt to remove it from the pan, you discover the center is still entirely unbaked. What should I do?!?

Don’t worry, I’m here to assist! After years of making cakes professionally and at home, I’ve seen almost every difficulty and come up with methods to assist!

Now let’s have a look at some frequent cake making errors.

1 – Too Dense

A cake that is particularly thick when it comes out of the oven simply did not have enough air in the batter.

This might have occurred in a variety of ways, so you may need to troubleshoot your batter to determine how to restore the air to your cake. To begin, consider the following options.

First, make sure you’re beating the batter long enough, particularly if the recipe calls for creaming butter and sugar—make that mix lovely and fluffy!

If you use oil instead of butter in your batter, be sure to thoroughly mix it and don’t hurry it—let the air bubbles develop!

A poor leavener is another cause of thick cake. Maybe your baking powder or baking soda is outdated and no longer effective.

A good leavener is required to help the batter rise and keep the air in throughout the baking process. A well-risen cake will not be thick!

A cake that has too much flour will be thick. Flour has a lot of gluten, which may weigh down a cake.

Verify your flour measurements and use cake flour, which contains less gluten than all-purpose flour (it’s called cake flour for a reason—wonderful it’s for cakes!).

Preheat the oven for at least 20 minutes before baking the cake. After the oven is set to the proper temperature, your cake will rise swiftly in the warm air.

Cake will not rise immediately in a chilly oven, and the batter will begin to cook before it has a chance to puff up (baking soda and baking powder need heat to act!). A chilly oven will undoubtedly result in a thick cake.

2 – Cake Overflows

As I opened the oven to check on my cake, I found the batter flowing over the side of the cake pan and over the bottom of the oven (I may have started a small oven fire this way as well.).

The simplest answer to this cake issue is to use less batter in your pan. Filling a cake pan halfway to two-thirds of the way up the edges is a decent rule of thumb. Any more and you risk having a cake explosion in your oven!

3 – A Sunken Cake

This is an issue I’ve had much too frequently. Your cake is beautiful and photogenic! You remove it from the oven and leave it aside to cool. Then, 5 minutes later, you return to discover a collapsed cake with a fully sunken core. What the hell happened?!?

The first and most probable issue here is that your cake was not completely cooked. Although the exterior of a cake may seem fluffy and golden brown, the inside may be undercooked.

To test the middle of the cake, use a toothpick or a knife. If the utensil comes out neatly with no sticky, wet batter on it, it’s finished! If the middle of the cake is still unbaked, bake it for a few minutes longer. Simple enough!

Sunken cakes may also be produced by an oven that is too cold or fluctuates too much.

If you open and shut the oven door too often to check on your cake, the oven temperature will fluctuate, making it difficult for the cake to bake. The surface will bake quicker, but the middle will take too long to heat up.

Cakes may also sink if there is insufficient structure to keep the cake together. By structure, I mean the elements that bind the cake batter and keep it all together, such as eggs or wheat.

If you skip an egg or an ounce of flour, your cake batter will not be stiff enough to keep its form when cooked and will sink once removed from the oven. Don’t skimp on essential materials!

4 – Stuck to the Pan

Once again, you believe you have cooked the ideal cake until you attempt to remove it from the pan. The cake is fully attached to the borders and bottom (where it is quite difficult to reach), and all of your attempts to remove it from the pan are unsuccessful.

Of course, you learn the hard way that a cake pan should always be thoroughly greased. So don’t simply oil it; flour it as well! This will undoubtedly aid in the removal of the cake from the pan once it has baked.

Putting a parchment circle in the bottom of the cake pan is probably the most efficient approach to protect a cake from adhering to the pan, since the paper will assist in lifting the cake out.

If you’re wondering how to get the cake you’ve already baked out of the pan, I’ve got a solution for you! Bake the stuck cake in the pan for approximately one minute in the oven.

The heat will loosen the cake and aid in its removal from the pan. Your cake is still salvageable!

5 – Crusty Edges

The center of your cake may be beautiful and fluffy, but the edges are really hard and scorched. This is most likely due to using too much pan spray or having an overly oiled pan. When there is too much fat in the pan, the sides of the cake actually fry.

Indeed, it is necessary to oil the pan’s sides, but a little goes a long way!

6 – Cake Batter is Too Stiff

If you’re stirring cake batter and it seems like you’re mixing cement, you’ve either added too much flour or been mixing for too long.

Too much gluten in the batter generally results in stiff, sticky batter. Too much flour will add a lot of gluten, and overmixing will encourage the gluten grow. Now here’s a simple fix: measure the flour accurately and mix the batter gently to integrate it.

7 – Fruit Falling to the Bottom

A cake made with fresh fruit is a great treat. Yet, just combining fresh fruit with any old cake recipe may not necessarily provide satisfactory results.

Fruit is heavy and tends to sink to the bottom of the cake, where it becomes thick and unappealing. When the batter is too light and fluffy, the fruit sinks to the bottom of the cake, or there isn’t enough flour in the batter to retain the fruit.

When baking a cake with fruit, a great solid batter is preferable than anything light like a chiffon cake.

Fruit will sink if it becomes too saturated and thick. Whole cherries and strawberries are also instances of big, juicy fruits that will sink in a cake.

If you insist on using these fruits, cut them into little pieces before incorporating them into your cake mixture.

8 – Cake Sides Caving In

You know you have a problem when the edges of a cake have sunken in and your cake appears like you placed a tight belt around the center. One of three factors may cause cake edges to sink inward: liquid, oil, or moisture.

Then, double-check that your cake batter recipe has the right quantity of liquid and that you accurately measured any liquid components.

Cakes with a last addition of buttermilk or coffee, for example, may be fussy, so double-check your liquids before putting them in.

Next, ensure that you just use a tiny quantity of pan spray or butter to oil your pans. Although you want your cake to readily come out of the pan after baking, it must also be able to climb up the sides of the pan in order to rise.

If there is too much oil, the batter will just slide down the sides. A little spray goes a long way, so don’t use too much!

Finally, don’t leave your cake on the cake pan for too long. When the cake cools, moisture might accumulate within the pan, causing the edges to sink inward.

Let the cake to cool for a few minutes before removing it from the pan and placing it on a cooling rack. The issue has been resolved!

9 – Cake Top Cracked

If your cakes are always coming out of the oven with broken tops, you most likely have a temperature issue.

When the oven temperature is too high, the outside and top of the cake bake too rapidly and produce a crust. While the core of the cake is still cooking and rising, the batter will break through the top crust, causing the cake to split.

A basic thermometer (available on Amazon) inside your oven can correctly tell you what the temperature is and assist you in ensuring your appliance is not overheating.

Although these cake baking issues might be irritating, there are simple solutions that will guarantee your cakes turn out flawlessly.

Making cakes is an art, a science, and a lot of fun. Of course, the labor is well worth it when you bite into a well cooked cake. Good luck with your baking!

Another typical cake baking issue that is too broad to cover in this article is preparing a cake when you don’t have all of the components.