The brains behind cult Sydney cake shop Flour and Stone shares her tips for better home baking
Anyone can bake. I really mean that! But sometimes a baking failure can be disheartening – there’s no sinking feeling like a sunken cake.
When it comes to baking, practise does eventually make perfect. There are some common baking mishaps that, like life, just happen. Here are some tips to help you avoid some more common catastrophes and ensure you become a better baker.
The raising agent has expired. If the cake has a raising agent, such as baking powder, this needs to be incorporated into the cake batter swiftly and then the cake placed into the oven immediately. Baking powder is activated the minute it comes into contact with liquid and so the longer it sits in the cake tin before baking, the higher the chances of its “raising powers” expiring.
The cake did not start baking at a high enough temperature. A cake made with flour and raising agent (as above) needs a higher temperature when it first goes into the oven to “lift” the crumb. Make sure to preheat your oven well in advance so that once the cake goes in, it begins cooking and takes full advantage of the baking powder’s power.
Whatever the recipe, preheat the oven to 10C higher than instructed. Once you open the door the oven will lose heat, the cake will take longer to rise, and the aforementioned raising agent will become exhausted and lose the will to live. When the cake is in, shut the door and lower the heat to the prescribed recipe temperature.
The butter wasn’t soft enough. When I say soft, I mean like the texture of dollop cream, not simply at room temperature. There are two reasons you need sufficiently soft butter: to allow any sugar to meld properly with the butter and create a fluffy base, and to encourage the eggs to emulsify with the butter more easily. Eggs will struggle to combine with butter that is too firm.
The eggs weren’t at room temperature. Eggs don’t like to be cold when mingling with butter. Pull them out of the fridge the night before to allow them to come up to room temperature.
You tried to add whole eggs to the butter. Give the eggs a little whisk with a fork to break them up and this will assist their union with the butter.
I think a lot of cake recipes have too much flour in them. Cut the flour quantity with a proportion of nut meal to impart moisture and lower the gluten (ultimately, gluten gives the cake its dryness).
The cake batter has curdled as you’re making it (see above). A curdled cake will need to cook for longer because the structure of the batter is broken. This usually results in a dry cake.
The cake doesn’t have enough fat. Depending on the cake you’re making, increase the fat – oil, milk or butter – already in the recipe. Start with a modest increase – about 10%. This will lighten the cake and impart more moisture that then translates to steam.
