6 Common Baking Mistakes And How To Undo Them

Baking is always a fun hobby to get into. For instance, parents can use this activity as an opportunity to spend quality time with their children. Many also consider baking as an effective and enriching way to relieve stress. Moreover, there are those who decide to use their baking skills to start a small, home-based business.

6 Common Baking Mistakes And How To Undo Them
Boy holding baking tray, presenting the cakes he has baked to camera, mid section, close up

However, regardless of your expertise in baking, there’s always room to learn. Even seasoned bakers can make mistakes occasionally. Therefore, it’s best to be aware of what these possible mistakes are so you can try to avoid them. If not, the quality, taste, and consistency of your baked goods may suffer. Even when you’re just baking at home for your family, you’ll still want the best outcome. The goal is always to serve delectable baked goods like the ones you can get from The South East Cakery Cake Shop and the other leading local bakeries, cafes, and patisseries.

With that said, here are six common baking mistakes and how you can fix or undo them:

1. Your Cake Is Too Dry (Or Too Wet)

Ideally, as long as you follow the outlined steps on a cake recipe, you’re going to come up with the desired consistency. However, it’s not always that easy. Baking the perfect cake is a delicate process that requires carefully balancing various factors.

For instance, if you bake the cake for even a few minutes longer than necessary, you’ll have a dry cake with a burnt bottom. On the other hand, if you don’t leave it in the oven long enough, the cake’s center will be wet and mushy.

There are many ways you can remedy this:

  • If your cake is too dry, you can poke some holes throughout the cake and brush it with a simple syrup (a mixture of water and sugar) to make it moister.
  • If the cake’s center seems wet and wobbly, decrease the oven’s temperature by 75 degrees Fahrenheit, cover the cake mixture with foil, and continue baking it until a toothpick poked through the cake comes out clean.

2. The Cake Sinks In The Middle

Once you see that your cake sinks in the middle after taking it out of the oven, you know you’ve made a mistake while baking. Perhaps you were unable to follow the recipe strictly and you ended up putting too much (or too little) of a certain ingredient.

Moreover, these are the most common causes of a sunken cake:

  • The cake was placed in the oven before it’s set to the right temperature;
  • You added too much baking powder;
  • The cake was baked with a flour type that’s too soft.

Here are workable remedies you can try out for a sunken cake:

  • Level the cake layer by cutting out the raw section so you’re only left with the well-cooked portions of the cake;
  • Cover it up with buttercream to mask any holes you made from cutting the uncooked areas, given that these holes also aren’t too deep.

3. The Dough Isn’t Rising

You need your dough to rise when you’re baking any type of bread. If your bread doesn’t rise according to the timeframe in the recipe, then that’s a telling sign of a problem. This is quite common, especially for first-time bread bakers.

The best way to remedy this is to heat a cup of water in the microwave. Once done, put your dough beside the cup of water inside the microwave. The closed microwave acts as a makeshift-proof box to speed up the rising process.

If this remedy doesn’t work, then you may be using expired yeast. If this is the case, you have no other remedy but to throw away the yeast and start over from scratch.

6 Common Baking Mistakes And How To Undo Them
Mother and daughter put to much sugar in mixing bowl while making apple pie dough

4. Badly Cracked Tops

When you’re baking a muffin or other similar baked goods, you’ll want its top to break or crack. On the other hand, when you’re baking a cake or a cupcake, you’ll want to avoid this at all costs. It’s normal for both a cupcake or cake to crack a little, but if it’s to a point that your cake is already badly cracked, then you need to remedy the problem.

Often, a badly cracked top happens when the cake or cupcake is overcooked, or if the oven is too hot. Fret not, however, as the remedy for this is quite simple. You can simply cut off the top layer of the cake and cover it with frosting. No one will even know that this batch had a badly cracked cake top.

5. Chewy And Tough Dough

Brownies and some cookies taste best when they’re chewy. But there’s a fine line between a chewy brownie or cookie with an enjoyable texture and one that feels tough and stretchy.

This happens when your dough or batter is over-activated. You can avoid a chewy and tough dough simply by mixing the dry ingredients and wet ingredients separately before combining them.

If your cookie, brownie, or other baked goods feel tough, stretchy, and unpleasantly chewy, you can try mixing the dough again with the mixer set at a lower level, rather than over-mixing it at high speed. Of course, this only works if you haven’t baked the product yet.

6. The Ingredients Aren’t In The Right Temperature

Maintaining the right temperature is crucial in baking. So, if the recipe asks you to use butter at room temperature, make sure you follow this instruction carefully. This may seem like a basic tip to follow, but there are still many bakers who might make this mistake. For instance, some people forget to bring some ingredients out because they’re too busy with other responsibilities and they end up baking at the very last minute.

However, always remember to bring ingredients like butter, cream cheese, and milk out of the fridge for at least half an hour prior to baking to bring these to room temperature.

When ingredients are at room temperature, it will help make your cake or cupcake fluffier. When you add cold eggs, for instance, they affect the other ingredients and may ruin the outcome.

Conclusion

As you continue to develop your baking skills, you’ll inevitably make mistakes and learn from the experience. Baking requires precision. To ensure that you get the desired results, you don’t need to have the priciest equipment. What matters most is how dedicated you are to master your skill and technique to come up with baked goodies that you’ll enjoy. Just keep in mind common mistakes that you can avoid and the tips above on how to remedy them.