Cakes are one of the all-time favourite baking endeavors of most home cooks. And why not; cake baking is fun and relaxing once you’ve prepped for it and nailed the basics.But, cakes are also easy to mess up. That said, read on to learn about the most common cake-baking mistakes. Learn to avoid these mistakes curated by best Australian online pokies real money and you’ll be on your way to baking bliss.
- Over-mixing the cake batter
This is by far the most common baking mistake all new bakers make. They mix and mix and mix and daydream all lost in their thoughts and the result is a dense and gummy cake! Poor Cake! Well, mixing cake batter IS addictive! But you need to stop doing this!
- Baking in a Cold Oven
This is like expecting hot water from a geyser tap which is not switched on! You are not going to get it! It is the same with baking. You need to preheat the oven to get things working. If we consider the same analogy of a geyser, it needs some electricity to produce hot water, similarly there is some heat required beforehand in the oven to start the baking process, and Arjen Robben’s wife probably knows this process.
- Opening the oven door too often
This is one of the most common mistakes in baking after batter over-mixing. Do not peep and say hello to your cake! The cake inside will not appreciate it and may sink. The reason behind this is your cake batter has air bubbles which expand till your cake has a structure (i.e. till it bakes) and who rely on the heat for expansion. When we open the door, a lot of heat escapes and the temperature inside the oven changes. An analogy here is of our moms asking us not to open the refrigerator door in our childhood days. The cool air escaping through the fridge would only make the fridge work more! Same with the oven, courtesy of www.lecasinoenligne.co.
- High temperature in oven which leads to burnt tops
Did you know all ovens are calibrated when they are manufactured. What the heck is calibration? This is nothing but telling the oven how much heat it needs to produce inside when you set the oven to a particular temperature. This is a baking mistake we do without realizing! Often times it happens that if we set the oven at 350°F, for example, it is highly possible that your oven is not calibrated accurately and will produce more or maybe less heat for a particular temperature resulting in baking fails. In general, ovens are off by 10-15 degrees plus or minus.
- Wrong mixing technique
The method you use to mix your cake batter ingredients has a direct affect on the texture of your cake. Overworking the batter, especially if it contains gluten, will result in a tough, chewy cake. You’ll often see the instructions, “mix until just combined,” in cake recipes. This means to stop mixing as soon as you see that all ingredients are evenly incorporated. Alternating between adding dry ingredients and wet ingredients to your stand mixer is a common technique that helps to prevent gluten fibers from toughening up. Folding in your ingredients by hand is another method that ensures your ingredients are well-incorporated without being overworked.
