Cake tips to avoid a dry cake | Marie Makes | Milton Keynes (2024)

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Cake tips to avoid a dry cake | Marie Makes | Milton Keynes? ›

Using an air-tight container is the best and easiest way to keep your cake from getting exposed to air. However, if you don't have one of those, you can wrap your cake in cling film, or if it's iced, place a large inverted bowl over it to trap the air.

Using an air-tight container is the best and easiest way to keep your cake from getting exposed to air. However, if you don't have one of those, you can wrap your cake in cling film, or if it's iced, place a large inverted bowl over it to trap the air.

To help prevent a dry, dense cake, let's add a creamy and light wet ingredient. Milk is usually required in a cake recipe to thin out the batter and lighten up the crumb, but sour cream is often overlooked. In addition to milk, add a Tablespoon or 2 of sour cream.

Add structure. On their own, boxed cake mixes have a structure that's loose and airy. But if you add ¼ cup flour or half a box of instant pudding mix, the texture of the cake becomes denser and tighter, ideal for a pound-cake-like consistency that will hold the shape of a Bundt pan.

So even though the cake might be moist and sweet enough the first day, the simple syrup helps ensure that the cake will still be moist the day it will be eaten. Brushing a cake with syrup adds moistness and flavor, especially if you've used something interesting in the syrup.

The most crucial tip? Instead of buying an entire box of cake flour, simply incorporate two tablespoons of cornstarch into 3 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour. This blocks the formation of gluten in the flour, which produces a lighter, fluffier cake.

Soak your cake in milk or cream.

Simply brush on a few tablespoons of milk or cream to the top of your dry cake or, for a truly indulgent finish, follow recipes like one-bowl tres leches poke cake, baked and soaked in a combination of whole milk, evaporated milk, and sweetened condensed milk.

Which ingredient makes cake soft and fluffy? ›

Baking powder is mixed with the flour. When water is added to this flour to make dough, baking powder undergoes a chemical reaction during which carbon dioxide gas is produced. This carbon dioxide gas gets trapped into the dough and bubbles out which causes the cake to rise making it soft and spongy.

A dry cake is usually the result of one of the following pitfalls: using the wrong ingredients, making mistakes while measuring or mixing the batter, or baking the cake too long or at too high a temperature. Once you understand which common cake-baking blunders to avoid, you'll know how to bake a moist cake every time.

Adding buttermilk or sour cream to the batter. Using cake flour instead of all-purpose flour. Brushing the cake with simple syrup or a mixture of sugar and water while it's still warm. Wrapping the cake in plastic wrap or aluminum foil after it's cooled to retain moisture.

Why does oil give cake superior texture? Butter is 18% water, so when the batter is baked, some of its liquid evaporates. Replacing the water from the butter with oil means there's more fat left in the cakes to ensure tenderness.

Applesauce acts much like the fat. It keeps the flour protein from mixing completely with the wet ingredients and forming a rubbery, dense texture. This is what does applesauce do in baking.

Soak your cake in milk or cream.

Simply brush on a few tablespoons of milk or cream to the top of your dry cake or, for a truly indulgent finish, follow recipes like one-bowl tres leches poke cake, baked and soaked in a combination of whole milk, evaporated milk, and sweetened condensed milk.

Unfrosted: Before refrigerating, wrap the cake or cake layers in plastic wrap to protect them from drying out or absorbing refrigerator smells. Frosted: Chill the cake uncovered for 15 minutes to harden the icing, then loosely wrap it in plastic wrap.

To prevent the cake from drying out, push the two halves of the cake together — exposed sides touching — and, after rotating, repeat the process. The next time you're at an event and you're looking for a new impressive trick, you'll have no problem wowing the crowd with this cake-cutting hack.