There is no celebration without a ‘Cake’. A nicely backed cake with smooth, fresh, and delicious frosting is a staple centerpiece of any occasion. If you want to know how to bake a cake at home perfectly, follow this post.
Baking is different from cooking. You may find baking a bit hit and miss. Baking is an area of cookery that you can not take lightly. It requires perfection, and for this, you need to follow secret tips.
If you need a moist, soft, and mouth-watering cake every time, this guide will teach you how to bake a cake at home. Follow these tips and surprise your family & guests with something as similar as bakery cake.
Tips to Bake Light and Fluffy Cake at Home: Secret Tricks
Many of us want to surprise our family with homemade cake. We bake the cake with full dedication, but we do not get that fluffiness in our cake that we see in the bakery cake. We will share our best recipe on how to bake a cake at home. Using our kitchen tips and tricks, you will be able to serve your guest a fancy cake as you’ve just bought from a bakery.
- Follow the Exact Recipe
It sounds obvious, right? But some of us are over-smart and ignore following the step-by-step guide. As we already mentioned, baking is different from cooking; it requires proper measurements of the ingredients. We often substitute the ingredients with what we have. Adding eggs, reducing sugars, using liquid sweetener instead of dry, ordinary flour instead of cake flour, baking soda for powder, etc. There is a reason behind suggesting you the exact measurement. Using the right proportion is the key to a nice and bakery-like cake. Baking a cake is an art. So, you need to follow the recipe on how to bake a cake at home if you don’t want to fail and waste your time, efforts, and money!
- Don’t Under and Over Mix
Most recipes will suggest you mix the batter better, either with the electric mixer or using a whisker. Mixing batter doesn’t mean you overmix it. Mix the batter until all the ingredients mix well. After all, the ingredients are combined properly, continuing mixing the batter will be considered overmixed. Over-mixing the batter will lead to a tough-texture baked because all the air will deflate and gluten will overdevelop. This is another important tip on how to bake a cake at home.
- Ingredients at Room Temperature
This tip is a little tricky, let us directly take you to the subject. ‘Room Temperature’ isn’t something mentioned on the particular ingredient. There is a science and legitimate reason behind it. If the recipe asks to gather room temperature ingredients, that means ingredients like eggs, milk, sour cream, and butter should be kept out of the refrigerator at normal temperature.
If you always wonder how to bake a cake at home, you must know the exact meaning of room temperature because it will decide the texture of your cake. Most cake recipes begin with mixing cream, butter, milk, and eggs together. Room temperature butter and cream have the capacity of holding the air that produces a fluffy texture when baked.
Not only this, room temperature ingredients are easier and quicker to mix. The simple way to bring all the ingredients to room temperature is to allow them to sit on the counter for 1-2 hours before starting the recipe of how to bake a cake at home.
Note: Don’t take a shortcut and microwave the butter to bring it to room temperature.
- Measure Properly
This is where most of us make mistakes. We often add and subtract the ingredients according to availability. But this is where most cakes fail to get that desired texture and fluffiness. The success of how to bake a cake at home lies in using the proper measurement of ingredients. Even a single mismeasurement leads you to failure.
From the major ingredient ‘flour’ to sugar, baking powder, soda, butter, milk to cream, and other ingredients, everything should be measured with the ‘spoon & level’ method. Flour is the most common mismeasured ingredient. Only use the measuring spoon and do not over or underfill the spoon.
Also, measure other ingredients like soda, butter, etc. correctly if you want to learn how to bake a cake at home perfectly.
- Do not Open the Oven
Once you set the container with batter in the oven, do not experiment to open it 25 times to check whether the cake is baked or not. If you open the oven, the cool air gets in that will change the temperature of the oven. In fact, preheat the oven before keeping the cake inside and also give your cake 30 minutes rest after taking it out from the oven. Do not rush in decorating or icing it before it gets cool completely; otherwise, the frosting will melt, and you will again be left with mismanaged cake. If you want to bake a bakery cake, you will have to follow all steps on how to bake a cake at home like a professional.
Bonus Tip: Easy Decorating
Dressing up the cake is equally important as dressing up a bride. The cake should be equally beautiful as delicious in taste. Nacked-style cake is the most simple and easy that requires zero to minimal frosting and effort. Buttercream flowers are also easy and can be done with two piping tips.
Whether it is a birthday party, wedding, baby shower, or bridal shower, no celebration starts without a delicious cake. You need to know how to bake a cake at home easily that is fluffy and delectable too. Keep these tips in mind and impress your family, friends, and colleagues.
