What are the three common causes of failures in cakes Why?
1) You forgot to add baking powder, or you used expired baking powder. 2) Your pan is too big, so the mixture can't rise enough to fill it. Or 3) You over whisked.
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.
Add a leavening agent to the flour. 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.
When you overmix cake batter, the gluten in the flour can form elastic gluten strands – resulting in a more dense, chewy texture. The white batter looks airier, while the red looks thick and dense. You Can Taste The Difference: The overmixed cupcakes were gummy.
Creaming can be hard work. In 1857 Miss Leslie (an American author of popular cookbooks) described a technique that would allow cooks to beat eggs "for an hour without fatigue" but then advised: "to stir butter and sugar is the hardest part of cake making.
1. Read the recipe through completely (I recommend reading it TWICE) before beginning. This is pretty much the Golden Rule when it comes to baking. It's imperative to read a recipe through in its entirety before even thinking about starting.
Much like pound cake, the 1-2-3-4 cake gets its name from the proportions of its base ingredients: one cup of butter, two cups of sugar, three cups of flour, four eggs.
Most cakes begin with creaming butter and sugar together. Butter is capable of holding air and the creaming process is when butter traps that air. While baking, that trapped air expands and produces a fluffy cake. No properly creamed butter = no air = no fluffiness.
Anywhere between 2 and 6 minutes should suffice. The time necessary for mixing will vary with recipe but this should help give you with a ball park idea of mixing time. I hope this information helps as you go forward experimenting with mix times in all of your batter-blending adventures. Happy baking!
Overmixing is exactly what it sounds like: the process by which a dough or batter gets mixed too much, typically yielding dense, tough, or deflated baked goods. Overmixed doughs and batters may have an unappealing look or feel, which remain just as unappealing when they're baked.
