Practical Cake Baking Tips That You'll Actually Use
Our number one priority at Damask is helping you feel like an accomplished baker. Whether it’s creating a flawless recipe or guiding you through each step of the process, our passion lies in encouraging excitement, fun, and success in the kitchen. But even with our help, baking a perfect cake or cupcake lies in the hands of the baker: you! Don’t worry, we’re still here to help. Below are some great cake baking tips for making a perfect cake.
1. Read and Follow the Recipe
Sounds obvious but one of the first mistakes made when baking a cake is not giving the recipe the attention it deserves. This is one of the most basic but most important cake baking tips. Especially if you’re new in the kitchen, reading the entire recipe not only helps with your confidence but it also prepares you for every upcoming step. There are no hidden hurdles, just a focused path to the finish line….I mean, yummy cake.
2. Prepare your Ingredients
One of the important reasons why you should read the recipe is because it allows you to prepare all your ingredients before you begin baking. Do you need water boiling or pans sprayed with non-stick spray? Do you need softened, room-temperature butter for frosting? Setting up your ingredients before you begin is one of the easiest ways to set yourself up for cake success.
3. Sift your Ingredients
Owning a sifter may seem unnecessary. It has one very specific job and takes up prime real estate in your kitchen. But one of the easiest and most effective tips for baking the perfect cake is making sure you sift your ingredients. No matter how fresh the ingredients are, flours and fine sugars always find ways to clump together. Sifting those ingredients ensures even mixing and even distribution of every single ingredient. Without sifting, your baking powder might not mix well with the clumped flour, encouraging uneven or even dense cakes. Or you might have little crunchy bits of sugar in your frosting resulting in an unpleasant texture. If you’re really wanting to step up your cake game, make sure you sift.
4. Room Temperature Ingredients
Another important reason why you should read your recipe (see #1) is because it helps to properly cue up the needed ingredients, especially the room temperature ingredients. Room-temperature ingredients mix more effectively, fluff up the batter more, and create that desired light, ethereal cake crumb.
5. The Ribbon Stage
Other than tip #1, the other most overlooked step in baking is improper mixing of the ingredients, especially when it comes to the eggs and sugar. Especially if you're short on time, mixing the eggs and sugar tends to get the short end of the stick and rushed along. But properly mixing those eggs and sugar to the ribbon stage helps promote a light, evenly baked cake. So, what is the “ribbon stage”? The ribbon stage is achieved by mixing the eggs and sugar long enough that little air bubbles get trapped in the batter, tripling the size of mixture. You’ll know that you’ve mixed the sugar and egg mixture long enough when you pick the whisk out of the mixture and a slow thick stream falls gently back into the bowl, like a ribbon. Trust me, take the time to achieve the ribbon stage. Your cake will thank you.
6. Don't Overmix
Just as important as mixing your eggs and sugar long enough to achieve the ribbon stage, overmixing once you add in the flour is a no-no. Unless you’re working with a gluten-free product, all flours contain gluten. Gluten is great when you’re baking bread, when structure and chew are desired. But when you want to bake a light and fluffy cake, gluten is the enemy. Gluten is developed when flour is mixed for an extended period of time. So, in order to control the gluten development, we suggest you finish mixing in the flour by hand. This ensures you don’t overmix the batter and are left with that desired fluffy cake.
7. Don't Open the Door Too Early or Slam the Door
This step is crucial. You’ve worked so hard to create a beautiful cake and opening or slamming the oven door could take it all away. Cake ingredients work in magical ways and one of those ways is the reaction between heat and the ingredients. If you open the oven too early, you let out all that hot air that’s working with your cake ingredients. A cooled down oven results in a flat, sunk, uneven, or dense cake. Similarly, accidentally closing your oven door too hard risks popping all those beautiful bubbles you worked so hard to achieve in tip #5. The best way to bake a perfect cake is to wait until the minimum bake time is reached and gently open and close the oven to check for doneness.
8. Test your Cake for Doneness
Once your oven timer has rung and you’ve reached that minimum bake time, checking your cake for doneness is another crucial tip to achieving the perfect cake. Just because it looks fully baked from the outside doesn’t mean that the center is fully baked. One way to test the doneness is a slight nudge on the side of the pan. Not too hard, just enough to see if the cake jiggles at all. If there is no jiggle, the next step would be to use a toothpick or cake tester. Stick your toothpick into the center of the center, slowly remove it, and check if any wet batter came off with the toothpick. If there is any batter on the toothpick, place the cakes back in the oven for another couple of minutes. You can also check the temperature of the cake with a thermometer. If the center of your cake temps at 200 degrees, it’s fully baked! Just don’t let it get to 212 degrees or your cake might be too dry.
9. Gently Remove your Cake from the Pans
Once your cakes are fully baked and they’ve cooled on your cooling rack for at least 15 minutes, removing the cakes from their pans is helpful for cooling your cakes completely. Since the pans will retain heat for a while, the fastest way to cool your cakes is to remove them. Try not to rush this step. Slowly drag a knife around the edge of the pan to release the sides. Then using the easy lift handles of the parchment paper, slowly lift the cakes out of the pans. If there’s any resistance, stop, cut through the stuck portion with the knife, and then try removing the cake again. Taking care during this step ensures a beautiful cake, ready for decorating!
10. Cool Completely
The last, crucial tip before decorating your cake is to cool your cake completely. You may not have time to cool your cakes but rushing the cooling process only results in a melted, decorated mess. Frosting a warm cake heats up the butter in the frosting, resulting in a runny frosting. So, to present the perfect cake, make sure you cool your cakes 100% before frosting.
