Challenges Faced While Baking a Cake

A cake is something that we all love. Cakes even stay as a friend in need with us during our good times like a birthday or marriage or even in bad times like heartbreaks or mood swings. Baking cakes can be a real treat as well as a very easy task if one knows the method well. Also, with the advent of new technology making cakes have become anyone’s forte. Moreover, you can always enroll in one of the top bakery schools in India to learn the nitty-gritty of baking a perfect cake and please your near and dear ones.

However, there can be a few common mistakes, that can ruin one’s mood of baking or eating the cake:

• TOO DENSE: If a cake comes out very dense from the oven that means it simply did not get enough air in the batter. Now, you need to find out ways to get the air back into the batter to make it less dense. Here can be a few solutions that might help. Firstly, you need to beat the batter as long as it makes the mixture nice and fluffy with good consistency. Secondly, if you use oil instead of butter, make sure to mix the batter well and let air bubbles form well. Thirdly, another reason of dense cake can be bad leavener. If your baking powder or baking soda is really old and expired, it can cause problems. Fourthly, the usage of too much flour can make the cake dense. Use gluten-free flour instead of all-purpose flour as heavy gluten can weigh the cake down. And lastly, preheating the oven for at least 20 minutes before pouring the cake batter in will make the cake nice and fluffy, as preheating the oven a little helps the baking soda and baking powder to work well.

• CAKE OVERFLOWS: How much batter to exactly pour is a real confusion to many. Pouring a huge quantity can lead to a cake explosion as the cake fluffs up when it is baked. A great hack will be to fill the cake pan halfway to two-thirds of the way up the sides of the pan to get the perfect cake.

• A SUNKEN CAKE: Your cake may look picture perfect through the oven, however, your smile might completely fade away while taking the cake out of the oven and cooled as the cake might entirely collapse by sinking from inside. This is actually because even if the cake might look done from outside, the insides might have remained uncooked still. The best solution to this problem would be using a knife or toothpick but putting it through the middle of the cake. If the object comes out clean, that means the cake is well cooked. Cakes might also sink because the oven might not have attained a proper temperature before baking. Another hazard might be opening and closing the oven door too frequently to check whether the cake is done well. Such a deed can make the temperature go up and down too fast for it to cook well all over. Also, a good fluffy cake might not happen if the ingredients are not in the right amounts. If you are short of an egg or proper flour, the cake might not be held firm enough to hold.

• STUCK TO THE PAN:  Even if the cake is baked fine it might be a great hustle for you to take the cake out of the tray to eat. There can be several instances when the cake might get stuck completely, to the edges and the bottom. However, if you grease the baking tray well with oil as well as flour properly, the cake will come out perfectly without anything getting attached to the tray. Another good method will be placing parchment paper in a circle at the bottom of the cake pan that will separate the cake and the tray even after baking. Now if you are wondering how to take out the cake well even if somehow you could not follow the steps before, just place the stuck cake bake in the oven for about one minute. This will make the cake come out easily due to the heat, which will separate the two.

• CRUSTY EDGES: The cake of your dream might become a nightmare if it gets crusty edges. These edges can be very crunchy and burned. This might be caused due to oiling the pan too much. Too much pan spray or over-greasing the pan is the main cause of the edges getting fried.

• CAKE BATTER IS TOO STIFF: If it appears to you that mixing the batter is a herculean task as if it feels like mixing cement, the reason actually might be adding too much flour. The stiffness and sticky batter is basically due to excessive adding of gluten through the flour getting mixed. On top of that, if the batter is over-mixed, gluten will get developed more and more. Thus, measure the flour correctly and stir the batter smoothly.

• FRUIT FALLING TO THE BOTTOM: If you are aiming to bake a delicious fruit cake you might come across this problem of the fruits falling to the bottom of the cake. Mixing fresh fruits with the old cake batter causes this hazard. Also, the batter should have the perfect amount of flour to be sturdy enough to hold the fruits as the fruits tend to be heavy and sink to the bottom. If the batter is too light and fluffy as you make while preparing a chiffon cake, it will not be able to hold the fruits. Another way of equal distribution of fruits all over the inside of the cake would be chopping the fruits into small pieces as it will make the fruits sink down especially in the case of large, moist, and heavy fruits like strawberries, berries, grapes, and many more. For the best help, do enroll in a bakery institute in India.

• CAKE SIDES CAVING IN: If you are thinking about why your cake is looking as if a tight belt is bound around the center, this is a problem of the cake sides caving inwards. Such a situation may occur due to three common reasons: moisture of the cake, greasing of the pans, and temperature of the cake. Firstly, you need to make sure whether the cake batter has the right amount of moisture or well-measured liquid content like buttermilk or coffee. Secondly, make sure you use a small amount of butter or pan spray to grease the pans. Do not overdo the greasing. Also do not try cooling the cake too much as moisture can build up well inwards as much as it will sink the cake inwards.

• CAKE TOP CRACKED: There are many instances when you will see the baked cake have a cracked top when you take it out of the oven. This will take place if the oven is too hot, more than the perfect temperature of preheating. Too much heat will bake the top and outside of the cake quickly and will lead to crusting while baking only on the outside. A simple thermometer will identify the best thermometer for you.

As a leading bakery institute in India, we help you learn everything from scratch in a comprehensive manner. Our courses are appropriately designed to provide students with the best exposure. The bakery and culinary arts instructors are excellently trained according to international standards. Our vision is to help every student to grow into a leading professional in Bakery and Culinary Arts. So, what are you waiting for? Joining a premium bakery school in India will enable you to acquire the top skills in the industry.