Sometimes, baking can be trickier than anticipated. Say you’ve got a fabulous lemon muffin that you want to jazz up with some blueberries, or a spice cake that’s begging for some crystallized ginger chunks. All you’ve got to do is add in those extra ingredients, right?
You probably already know what we’re going to say: wrong. One of the challenges of adding chunky ingredients—dried fruit, fresh fruit, chocolate chips, etc.—to batter is that they tend to sink to the bottom. And that may or may not be what you’re going for.
Why? There are a few reasons:
- Chunky ingredients are denser and usually heavier than the batter—so down they go. The heavier the ingredient, the more it will sink, until you have a nice bottom crust of blueberries instead of evenly distributed, gooey berry goodness.
- If your batter is slack or runny, it will be particularly susceptible to sinking ingredients. That’s one reason you may have experienced this issue with some recipes but not with others.
- The fruit is covered in a syrup (such as glace cherries). The syrup makes the fruit heavy and slippery.
How to Prevent Fruit from Sinking in Baked Goods
There are a few solutions to sinking ingredients, all of which are simple.
In general, we recommend coating chunky ingredients in flour before mixing them into your batter. Not too much flour—just a tablespoon or two. The flour will adhere to the batter and effectively lock your fruit or chocolate chips into place.
For slack or thin batters, you may also need to use smaller chunks—think mini chocolate chips or chopping up your fruit into smaller bits. Remember that dried fruit tends to be lighter than fresh fruit. Candied fruit or fruit preserved in syrup will be heavier.
If you are using fruit preserved in syrup, you will need to take one additional step: rinse the syrup off. This will take some of the weight out of the ingredient and make it less slippery. Cut into smaller chunks if needed and coat in flour before adding to your batter.
It can be frustrating when bakes don’t turn out as expected or the way they are “supposed” to. But remember…
Sometimes It’s Okay to Break the Rules!
Baking is a science… but it’s also an art. Leave some room for yourself to play and experiment. You never know what you might come up with! Food is constantly evolving, so don’t box yourself in by what’s considered to be the “right” way to do things.
For example, our Chocolate Treasure Muffin boldly defies the rules when it comes to sinking ingredients. When developing that muffin, we discovered that we actually wanted the chocolate chips to sink to the bottom. Doing so created a delicious bottom crust of chocolate—a treasure trove, if you will.
Breaking the “evenly distributed” rule is one of the things that makes our Chocolate Treasure Muffin unique. In the end, all that matters is what you want the experience of eating your baked good to be. Perfectly distributed, fresh blueberries throughout? Great. A bottom crust of crispy chocolate? Fabulous. Dainty nibs of candied ginger in every bite? Spectacular.
The choice is yours.
FAQs
The best way to avoid sinking fruit is to toss the fruit in a couple of tablespoons of the flour (just use some from the measured amount for the recipe) to coat it lightly.
What causes fruit sunken in cake making? ›
If your batter is thin, says Wise, any added fruit needs support to help it stay suspended. Otherwise, it will all sink to the bottom. With any recipe, she first considers the thickness of her cake batter and how heavy, or wet, the added fruit will be.
How to prevent cake from sinking after baking? ›
Cake sinking after baking can be prevented by ensuring the oven is preheated correctly, using the right size of baking tin, avoiding opening the oven door too early, checking for doneness with a toothpick, and allowing the cake to cool gradually in the oven before removing it.
How do you store baked goods with fruit? ›
Always store cakes with fresh fruit, whipped cream or cream cheese frosting in the refrigerator along with breads featuring meat or hard-boiled eggs. For baked goods that are stored at room temperature, place them in an airtight container.
How do you keep strawberries from sinking in a cake? ›
There are four quick and easy methods you can try to stop this from happening!
- Coat the fruit in flour. Toss the fruit in a little flour before adding it to the batter. ...
- Split your batter. ...
- Cut the fruit up smaller. ...
- Put the fruit on top.
Adding too much liquid to fruit cakes can also result in the fruit sinking to the bottom and can cause a creamy wet stickiness to the baked cake which can't be remedied. Following the recipe and a little common sense will pay big dividends.
Can you still eat a cake that has sunk? ›
If your cake was cooked to the proper temperature, chances are it is still edible even if it sunk in the center. Check that it's baked through the middle, then try a small piece of your cake. It might not taste good if the ingredient measurements were off. Notice the texture to make sure it's not too dense or spongy.
Why has my cake sunk in the middle while baking? ›
This is because too much batter in one cake tin may result in the weight of the batter being too much for the cake to support, causing the cake to collapse and sink in the middle as it bakes. This is especially true for cake recipes which have a more softer, delicate structure to them, which many of my cake recipes do.
How to fix sunken muffins? ›
How to fix: set your oven to the temperature the recipe is calling for. Make sure to have an oven thermometer so you can regulate the temperature. If you under bake the cupcakes they will sink, because the middle of the cupcake won't have a chance to set and rise properly.
How do you preserve fruit on top of a cake? ›
Keeping them in the chiller would dry the fruit out and that would be unpleasant. So I brushed their surface with piping jelly to keep the fruits moist and shiny. Since the fruits do not come into direct contact with cold air, they don't dry out. So for two days, piping jelly does great!
Try a temperature of 425º F. If this temperature is significantly hotter than the recipe calls for, reduce the baking time. The best test to determine doneness is insert a wooden pick into the center of one of the center muffins before removing the pan from the oven.
How can you help fruit retain its shape when cooking? ›
Dry-heat methods that enhance fruit include grilling or broiling, roasting or baking, and sautéing. No matter what method you use, take care not to overcook fruit. Exposure to heat breaks down fruits' cell walls, which results in water loss. The less time fruit is exposed to heat, the better it retains its shape.
