You can also take insulated baking strips or a similar product and wrap the sides of the pan with them. This prevents the sides from setting and therefore allows the cake to rise much higher. The sides of your pan can't slip away because if they do, your cake won't rise as high and can even be on the flat side.
Cakes that don't rise properly or have a surface covered in little holes are often the result of not getting the cake into the oven quickly enough; a common mistake that happens because you forgot to turn the oven on before you started, or you get distracted with something else mid-way through mixing.
Most cakes will call for a leavening agent like baking powder or baking soda. These create the bubbles you need for the cake to rise. If the flour you use is self-raising, it already has a leavening agent in it. Make sure your butter is room temperature, and beat the butter and sugar together until properly creamed.
Baking soda and baking powder are common baking ingredients. They are both leavening agents, meaning they help baked goods to rise.
Baking soda as we talked about reacts immediately to acidic elements and gives immediate leavening effect. The baking powder keeps reacting with the heat to give a leavening boost while the baked goods are in the oven. A combination of both these leavening agents gives the best leavening for most cake recipes.
Good rule of thumb: I usually use around 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda per 1 cup of flour in a recipe. Baking soda CAN leaven a baked good when exposed to heat.
Mismeasured baking powder (too much or too little) may also give you a flat cake. Make sure you have just the right amount of this leavening agent to give your cake the right lift. And always be sure that you're working with good ingredients—expired baking powder can leave you with flat cake, too.
Too Much Leavening
You need leaveners, like baking soda and powder, to make your cake rise. But too much can cause your cake to rise super-fast in the oven, then fall once you pull it out. What to do: Be careful when measuring your baking soda and powder quantities, and make sure not to get them confused.
"Adding an additional egg creates a richer, fluffier cake," says Waterson. Tack on an additional egg than what's called for on the box while mixing, and mix as normal. Egg whites: Egg yolks contain more fat than egg whites. For a light, airy cake, swap out whole eggs for egg whites.
Many recipes need both kinds of reactions to achieve the intended overall balance of flavor and texture, which is why you'll often see both baking soda and baking powder in a recipe. Even though the ingredients are both adding air during the baking process, they're complements, not substitutes.
There's a big chance your butter and sugar will over-cream, meaning the butter will trap more air than it should. As the batter bakes, that extra air will deflate and leave you with an overly dense cake. It's all science! For best results, cream butter and sugar together for about 1-2 minutes.
There are four possibilities to this problem of cake sinking: opening the oven door too quickly before the cake has a chance to set, letting the cake sit out for too long before putting it in the oven, the temperature is not warm enough, or you have used too much baking powder or soda.
Make sure you follow the recipe's instructions carefully. Cakes typically bake between 325 to 450 degrees F (see chart with Tip #9). Most convection ovens require lowering the temperature by 25 to 50 degrees F, as well as turning off the fan.
Too Much Flour
A cake batter with too much flour will be dry, crumbly, and heavy. To avoid this, make sure you weigh your flour instead of scooping it. Although it's quick, scooping with a measuring cup can easily result in too much flour.
Unless you notice that your cake is undercooked right after removing it from the oven, it will not rise again by baking it longer. If your toothpick came out clean when you tested the center, there's a good chance that your cake isn't undercooked and that something else caused it to sink.
Liquids boil at lower temperatures, which causes moisture in baked goods to evaporate quicker. Flours tend to be drier and absorb more liquid at higher altitudes. Baked items with leavening agents like baking powder, baking soda, and even whipped egg whites can rise quickly and collapse.
Correct oven temperature is necessary to allow the cake to rise before the structure sets. If the oven is too hot, the cake will set too fast before the air bubbles have formed. If the oven is not hot enough, the cake will rise too much, then fall in the center before it is set.
Uneven heating may be due to the oven itself. Rotate cake pans ¾ through the baking period to compensate for uneven heat distribution. An oven that is too hot can also cause uneven baking. Test the oven temperature when preheating the oven by using an oven thermometer and adjust as necessary.
Beating the batter for too long or too much is called overmixing. It can trap too much air in the batter. If this happens, the cake may rise too fast during the baking and quickly sink.
Too much baking soda will result in a soapy taste with a coarse, open crumb. Baking soda causes reddening of cocoa powder when baked, hence the name Devil's Food Cake.
You technically can leave out baking soda in certain recipes (like chocolate chip cookies or pancakes) in a pinch, but you need to understand that your finished product will not be as light and fluffy as the recipe intended. Unless you have no other option, you really should use a leavening substitute.
Bicarbonate of soda is much more powerful than baking powder, so it is recommended that you use around 1/4 the amount of bicarbonate of soda when using it to replace baking powder (eg. if the recipe calls for 2tsp. baking powder, use 1/2 tsp. bicarbonate of soda).