15 Things I Wish I’d Known Before Beginning to Bake Scratch Cakes

As a child, I was quite impatient. (All right, I’m still eager.) Anyway, I didn’t see why preheating the oven was required.

I’d forget and then turn on the oven and put the cake in. Then I’d wonder why it didn’t rise correctly or took too long to bake, resulting in a dry product.

However, it is essential to preheat your oven. You must raise the temperature before placing the cake. In fact, even if your oven indicates it’s ready, it’s preferable to let it preheat for a few minutes longer.

You don’t want heat fluctuations in the oven while your cake is baking. You want your cake to rise appropriately, not be too thick, and not dry out due to the prolonged baking time.

I wish I’d known to check the oven temp with a thermometer:

This one took me a bit to figure out. I’m not sure why I was so resistant to just going out and obtaining an oven thermometer, but it took me a long time to eventually decide to do it.

It is, however, quite useful in assessing if your oven is even near to the temperature you have set it to. If it’s off, at least you’ll know how much to adjust the temperature.

You’re probably thinking I’m stupid right now, but a lot of people don’t understand you need to prepare cake pans before pouring in the batter.

It is not stupid.We just do not know some things at times, and when we do, we do better.

Different recipes will instruct you on how to prepare your pans in various ways. That is critical to remember since you absolutely want your cakes to lift out of their pans.

There are several methods for prepping pans, including using parchment paper (not wax paper), butter, shortening and then flouring, the pan release recipe, or nonstick spray.

If you want to dig further and receive additional advice, I go into a lot more depth and demonstrate my preferred way in this post: How to Get Your Cakes to Release From Pans

I wish I’d known that using dark coated or slanted side pans could cause problems.

This is a huge one. When I realized this, my cake making improved dramatically.

So, although black coated pans are excellent for nonstick reasons, they are not ideal for baking cakes.

If you’re using a dark-coated pan, reduce the oven temperature by around 25 degrees and bake the cake for a bit longer.

Dark-coated pans appear to bake things faster, so keep an eye on it.

When it comes to slant side pans, if you want a good looking cake, they aren’t the way to go. For a long time, I cooked using these tilted pans, not understanding why my cakes didn’t look right and were difficult to decorate.

The slanted sides must be trimmed in order for the sides of the cake to be straight up and down, or else things will seem strange.

It’s simpler to bake in nice pans to begin with since you won’t have to worry about increasing the oven temperature because the pan is dark or cutting the cake edges to get them straight up and down.

Magic line pans are my absolute favorite. They bake cake layers much more uniformly than other cake pans, in my opinion. Because they aren’t black coated, you’ll have to prepare them (as I indicated above), but I’ve always had excellent experience with them.

Magic Line Pans may be purchased here: 8 Magic Line Pans, Round

I also make use of Wilton pans. They don’t bake as uniformly as Magic Line pans, but they’re still terrific pans and less priced. These may be found here: 8 Wilton Round Pans

Check out this article for additional cake-baking tips: 12 Must-Have Tools to Begin Baking Amazing Cakes.

Most cakes must be cooked in the center of the oven. You don’t want to bake them too hot or too cold, or you’ll have all sorts of problems.

Some cake recipes may instruct you to bake them on a certain rack. Simply follow the recipe’s instructions, but if nothing else is specified, bake your cakes in the center of the oven.

Air circulates better in the center, resulting in more balanced heating.

Oh, my goodness! I was bad at weighing and measuring ingredients. How significant could it possibly be?

I’m sure I don’t have to explain you how vital it is to correctly measure baking materials. I mean, it’s OK to wing it while cooking, but not when baking.

Baking is all about proportions, and if you get one wrong, the entire thing might collapse literally.

So it’s not only mis-measuring, but also how you measure. There are two types of measuring cups: liquid measuring cups and dry measuring cups.

One such example is measuring flour. Many individuals just dip a measuring cup into the flour bag to measure it. That’s a no-no because it packs the flour inside the cup.

You’ll really be adding more flour to your mixture than you need, which might result in a thick or dry cake.

I’ve written a full post on measurement. There’s also a video showing how to measure liquid and dry ingredients correctly. That may be found here: Baking Cake Ingredient Measuring

I wish I’d known that substituting, adding, or eliminating ingredients can cause a lot of problems.

Making substitutes and changing out components, as well as adding and removing ingredients as needed, is a terrible idea.

I used to make ALL of those errors and then wonder why things didn’t work out. The issue is, we assume something will not make a difference, but it does.

For example, if you reduce the quantity of sugar in the recipe, you may forfeit moisture, since sugar not only makes a cake tasty, but it also contributes to the moistness of the cake.

Another example is replacing baking powder with baking soda, or vice versa. These are not the same thing, and using them interchangeably may lead to serious problems. I’ve written a detailed post on it here: What Is the Distinction Between Baking Powder and Baking Soda?

There are a few acceptable replacements, but you must use extreme caution. If you want additional information on what you can substitute and a downloadable cheat sheet, check out this post: Substitutions for Cake Baking and a Cheat Sheet

I wish I’d known that just adding more liquid, won’t necessarily make the cake more moist.

Adding additional liquid to a cake to make it more moist is a bad idea.

That alters the ratio, because liquid isn’t the only element that keeps a cake moist. Fat (as in oils, eggs, milk, and so on) and sugar both aid.

If you add too much liquid, you may end up with a strangely textured cake that is rubbery, similar to when you overmix it. Believe me, I’ve done it.

If you’re having difficulties getting moist cakes, I have an article and video on how to accomplish it here that you may want to look at: How to Make Moist Cake

I also have another article regarding dry cakes, why they happen, and what you can do about them here: Why are my cakes so stale?

Oh, I used to do this all the time! I was continually forgetting to put the butter out. (Let’s be honest, I still do.)

In any case, microwaving the butter does not uniformly heat it. Parts of it melt, while others remain cold, and this does not mix well with the other ingredients.

So what I’ve discovered recently is to just chop up the butter and place it on a platter. It normally returns to room temperature in approximately an hour.

Oh, this is a huge one, and I was the worst at following instructions on the planet. Why should I go through all of these processes and use all of these bowls?

It didn’t make sense to me until I learned more about baking and began following the recipe directions. I then boasted about how much superior my cakes were.

You never realize what you’re missing until you try something new, and that was the case for me.

It makes a big difference how you combine the elements. The recipes aren’t simply suggesting that to make you work harder. (I used to believe this.)

When components are blended in a certain order, everything emulsifies and rises appropriately.

In this article, I go into a lot more depth on mixing methods: Flour Types and Cake Mixing Methods

I also have a detailed tutorial on baking scratch cakes here: How to Make a Homemade Cake

The most common error I notice is overmixing the cake batter.

I’ll simply say it out loud.Don’t overwork the cake mixture to get rid of all the little bits. That is, in fact, a HUGE error.

It may seem paradoxical not to mix it until perfectly smooth, but if you do, the gluten will get overdeveloped and the cake would be quite thick and rubbery.

Simply mix until everything is nicely integrated. Remove any major lumps, but don’t worry about making it exactly smooth.

I initially heard this someplace online or in a cookbook, but it was in reference to preparing pancakes. So, the following time I prepared them, I tried not to overmix the batter, and the pancakes were even fluffier!

Then I understood it was the same idea as every other baked item. When you think about it, it’s a comfort to know you won’t have to work as hard.

I do have an article on how long to mix cake batter that includes a video of real-time mixing (not fast-forwarding) so you can get a decent sense of how long I’m talking about. How to Prepare Cake Batter

I wish I’d known not to try so hard to get flat cake layers.

I wish I’d known that cake layers can be baked ahead of time and frozen.