Beautiful cakes don't have to come from your local bakery; they can be made in your kitchen. Sure, baking powder or baking soda plays a part in ensuring your cake rises (without a sunken center) as expected, but that's not the only way to guarantee success from the oven.
If your cake didn't rise or had a dense texture instead of the light and fluffy one you wanted, there are factors to keep in mind during your cake-baking adventures. Successful baking requires attention to every detail, and following these guidelines will help your cakes rise with a tender and airy crumb. Every time.
What Makes a Cake Rise
It's essential to learn what makes a cake rise to prevent it from sinking (or rising and then deflating after cooling). Read through these four factors for preparing and baking cake correctly, and you'll never have to wonder why your cake didn't rise again.
1. Leavening Agents
Breads, cakes, cookies, and nearly all baked goods require a leavening agent. These are the key ingredients that make a cake rise. There are two types of leavening agents, chemical (baking soda and baking powder) and biological (yeast).
Since we're talking about cake and not yeast bread, we'll focus on chemical leavening. The reaction of baking soda or baking powder with the liquids in the batter releases carbon dioxide, which forms air bubbles to help your cakes be light and airy.
Baking soda and baking powder aren't interchangeable. So what's the difference? Baking soda (aka sodium bicarbonate) only activates when combined with liquid AND an acidic ingredient. So it's common to see baking soda quick bread recipes like pancakes or muffins.
If your recipe has baking powder, it's a complete leavener. It will do the trick without the addition of an acidic ingredient. Pay attention to how much of each or just one of the leavening agents you'll need to get your recipe right.
Test Kitchen Tip: Always keep an eye on the expiration dates of your leavening agents. Using an expired leavener will result in a flat, dense cake.
2. Creaming Your Butter Mixture
"Creaming" is the part of the recipe when you beat the butter (or shortening) and sugar with a mixer ($32, Hamilton Beach). When creaming two or more ingredients, usually with a hand mixer, the end result should be a smooth mixture with no separation. Creaming incorporates air that helps your cake rise and shouldn't be cut short if you want a fine, even cake texture. Follow the timings for beating in the recipe closely and measure your ingredients correctly.
3. Introduction of Eggs into the Batter
Eggs alone can help make desserts like angel food cake light and fluffy without requiring leavening agents. The cake you make will determine how much beating eggs need. In a traditional yellow cake, you'd beat eggs individually into the batter for 1 minute each. Sometimes the yolks and whites are beaten separately.
Make sure to follow the timings in the recipe when beating in eggs and whether you need to have your eggs at room temperature first. Too many eggs in the batter can result in a dense or compact cake.
How to Make Sure Your Cake Always Comes Out Moist
4. Oven Temperature
The oven's heat can cause baking powder to react further and cause more air bubbles while setting the cake's structure. Correct oven temperature is necessary to allow the cake to rise before the structure sets. If the oven is too hot, the cake will set too fast before the air bubbles have formed. If the oven is not hot enough, the cake will rise too much, then fall in the center before it is set.
Bake a cake mix cake for a test run to check your oven temperature. (Make sure you've preheated your oven, too.) If the cake is done properly within the time range on the package, your oven is most likely baking at the proper temperature. Use an oven thermometer ($7, Walmart) to see if the temperature matches the setting.
You can also consult your manufacturer's directions or an appliance expert on adjusting the temperature up or down. Keeping your oven clean can also help it stay consistently heated.
Practice Your Baking Skills with Our Classic Cake Recipes
If for some reason you're still wondering why your cake deflated after cooling, use our cake troubleshooting guide to learn the various reasons why cakes fall and ensure it never happens again. Don't throw the flat cake out, either! Give your cake a new look by turning it into cake pops or cut it up and serve it with ice cream.
Now that you've got the basics for how to prevent the cake from sinking, give your new baking knowledge a try with our double chocolate cake or champagne cake with strawberries.
Most cakes will call for a leavening agent like baking powder or baking soda. These create the bubbles you need for the cake to rise. If the flour you use is self-raising, it already has a leavening agent in it.
Most cakes will call for a leavening agent like baking powder or baking soda. These create the bubbles you need for the cake to rise. If the flour you use is self-raising, it already has a leavening agent in it.
The most crucial tip? Instead of buying an entire box of cake flour, simply incorporate two tablespoons of cornstarch into 3 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour. This blocks the formation of gluten in the flour, which produces a lighter, fluffier cake.
Cakes and pastries are fluffy and light in nature due to the presence of baking soda in it. When baking soda is combined with both an acidic ingredient and a liquid, it becomes activated. Upon activation, Carbon dioxide is produced, which allows baked products to rise and become light and fluffy.
Flour, sugar, egg and fat form the basic components of all cakes. Understanding the function of each of these ingredients in cake baking can give us a better idea of where we can substitute super foods such as flax, chia, or mushrooms.
Cakes rise in the first half of the bake, before the ingredients set into place in the second half. If your oven isn't hot enough from the get-go then you're going to skip that initial rising time and go straight to setting.
Baking soda becomes activated when it's combined with both an acidic ingredient and a liquid. Upon activation, carbon dioxide is produced, which allows baked goods to rise and become light and fluffy (1).
Using water will deprive your mixture of some of the ingredients needed. Milk is complex. It contains fat, protein, sugar, and, just to use as an example, acid. The lactic acid in milk will combine with the baking powder in your dry ingredients to cause gas bubbles that cause the cake to rise as it bakes.
If the oven is too hot, the cake will set too fast before the air bubbles have formed. If the oven is not hot enough, the cake will rise too much, then fall in the center before it is set. Bake a cake mix cake for a test run to check your oven temperature. (Make sure you've preheated your oven, too.)
Eggs provide structure and moisture in a cake mix. Make your cake richer or fluffier with these quick options: Extra egg: To make your cake lighter, mixing in another egg will do the trick. "Adding an additional egg creates a richer, fluffier cake," says Waterson.
Use cake flour in recipes where you want an extra-light, extra-fluffy texture, like Angel Food Cake, Cream Cheese Pound Cake, or Buttermilk-Chocolate Cake. You can also use cake flour to bring a more tender crumb to other sweets, like Chocolate Crinkle Cookies.
Baking soda and baking powder are more common in recipes for cookies, cakes, and quick breads, and they are responsible for giving baked goods the light, fluffy, porous structure that makes them delicious.
Eggs also contain a variety of proteins that create the structure of a cake, and when beaten, they can act as a leavening agent by adding air to the cake batter. However, if you add too many eggs to your cake batter, then your end result could be spongy, rubbery, or dense.
Flour is perhaps the most important ingredient in a cake mix, as it creates the basic structure of the entire cake. A major component of flour is gluten, which is a protein that provides a way for the cake to bind to itself.
Milk is a nutrient-rich white fluid secreted from the mammary glands of female mammals. In baking, it moistens batter or dough, and adds protein, color and flavor to baked goods.
Add structure. On their own, boxed cake mixes have a structure that's loose and airy. But if you add ¼ cup flour or half a box of instant pudding mix, the texture of the cake becomes denser and tighter, ideal for a pound-cake-like consistency that will hold the shape of a Bundt pan.
This could be because a/ the cake mixture hasn't had enough air beaten into it, b/ the eggs were added too quickly and curdled or c/ there's not enough raising agent.
Baking soda changes the texture of baked goods by causing a batter or dough to spread, while baking powder produces light, fluffy texture. Some recipes may call for baking soda or baking powder on their own, while others may require both ingredients to create the ideal balance for great texture.
Introduction: My name is Twana Towne Ret, I am a famous, talented, joyous, perfect, powerful, inquisitive, lovely person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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