Baking tips on how to make a perfect cake

I recently sat down and wrote a long article about how to bake the perfect cookie. While this is not online yet, I felt it was a great idea to start with an article on how to bake the perfect cake. I receive questions about this on a daily basis, so time to put all my tips together for easy reference.

Practice makes perfect

I like to think that baking a good cake is easy and simple, but in reality there is a ton of things that can go wrong. The fact that I don’t find it difficult is mainly due to the fact that I have made more cakes than most people do in a lifetime. And as with all things; practice does make perfect.

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes either, because I learned all the things below by doing it wrong a couple of times! So making mistakes is almost essential to being a good baker. But there are a couple of things that can be prevented if you know how. So if you have a good look at the below baking tips, it’s easy baking the perfect cake.

Dry cake

When you bake a cake you want the end result to be nice and moist. A dry cake is definitely not a big success. The cause for ending up with a dry cake is pretty simple; you have either baked it for too long or it has baked in an oven that was too hot.

Too much moisture has evaporated, which results in a dry cake. So for next time, try baking at a lower temperature and/or check the cake a little earlier to see if it is done. Every oven is different so having an oven thermometer separately that measures the temperature might help in figuring out your oven. Read this article also which is full of tips on how to avoid a dry cake.

Dense cake

A compact and dense cake can be very tasty with certain recipes, but most of the time you just want an airy result. Dense cakes can have several causes. One is too much moisture, for example from milk, eggs or butter. This prevents the cake from cooking and rising properly, resulting in a compact cake.

Another reason is too much cake batter. Yes, you can have something as too much batter! A batter that is too airy will actually collapse, resulting in a compact cake. But you can also make your batter too dense by using too much baking powder.

Collapsed cake

A collapsed cake and a dense cake are closely related. Your cake can collapse because you whipped the batter too long so it has too much air. Or again you might have used too much leavening agents.

A cake can also collapse if you open the oven too early. Your cake needs the heat in the oven to rise and set. You disrupt this process by opening the oven door. Cold air enters your cake, and as a reaction, your baking may fail completely. In the case of a cake, it will collapse.

Do you still want to open the oven to check your baking? Do it as late as possible. I usually wait until at least two-thirds of the way through the baking time. That way it has already set enough for me to be able to open the oven door without too much of a risk.

Cracked cake

I love a cracked cake, it looks so rustic. But I know from the many questions I get that not everyone thinks so. Many of you prefer a cake that doesn’t come out of the oven with a rustic look. Fortunately, it is not difficult to bake such a smooth cake, as it has everything to do with the temperature.

Just bake at a lower temperature and leave your cake in the oven a little longer if necessary. That way it will rise more gradually and you prevent the crack from happening.

Added ingredients sink to the bottom

You add pieces of chocolate to your cake and once baked you cut into the cake, expecting to see lovely chocolate pieces throughout the cake. But annoyingly they all sank to the bottom! This can happen with pieces of fruit, cookies or any other ingredients you add to the batter.

Again, there are several reasons for this to happen. Trick number one is to add some flour to the chocolate pieces, for example. Just mix them in a separate bowl so that all the pieces are coated with flour, then add them to the dough.

Reason number two is that the batter is too airy. A batter that is too airy is not firm enough to keep the pieces from sinking to the bottom. Think of it like the foam on your cappuccino. On a firm layer of foam, your coffee spoon will stay on top (at first), but if it is not firm due to too many air bubbles, it will sink right through.

Storing cakes

Once you’ve baked the perfect cake, you want it to stay perfect until you serve it. The most important thing is to keep it out of the refrigerator, as it will dry out. Good packaging is also important, I usually use aluminum foil. You can read my tips on how to store cupcakes here. I will soon have more tips on how to store cakes in general.

Finally, here are some of my favorite cake recipes where you can apply the above tips:

• Apple loaf cake
• Vanilla loaf cake
• Slagroomtaart (Dutch cream cake)
• Dutch spiced breakfast cake