6 Tips to Have the Perfect Homemade Cake

Are you in love with cakes? Have you tried to make one, but it does not succeed with you? Do you want to make a fluffy, light, and tasty cake? Do you want to have even layers? This is an easy task to do now! All cake recipes can be divided into six stages. Hence, here are some of the tricks, tips and secrets to each stage. Just stick to the following tips and techniques so that you will have the perfect result; the perfect cake you would like it to be!

#1 Getting the Desired Recipe

The first significant thing that has to be taken into consideration is the recipe itself. What type of cake would you like to make? What is the type of frosting that suit the selected cake? Once you determine your mind, you should take the recipe from a trusted source and follow its steps to the letter to get guaranteed results.

#2 Preparing the Ingredients

First, use the exact measurements for the ingredients to ensure accuracy with weights. Try to use the exact measuring tools like measuring spoons and cups as provided in the recipe. In addition, using a digital kitchen scale to weigh ingredients is one of the most accurate methods of measuring and baking.

Regarding the flour, measure it with a dry measuring cup. Then, using a knife, try to sweep the excess off to get the exact amount needed for your recipe. Do not ever think that adding more from any of the ingredients will make the cake tastes better. To think, for instance, that adding more baking powder to the batter will make the cake rise more, this is an absolutely wrong thing to do. If you do so, you will end up with a damaged and collapsed cake that has no taste at all! Not only should you think of measuring the ingredients accurately, but also you should make sure to add them in the same order and manner as stated in the recipe.

Second, almost all cake recipes require the ingredients, particularly the eggs and butter, to be at room temperature. Therefore, make sure to take them out of the fridge beforehand, for about an hour or two hours before using them. This is to make sure the both butter and eggs will cream well and provide a smooth, pale-yellow texture; hence, it will result an amazing light cake.

If you want to bring the egg to the room temperature quickly, you can put the eggs in warm water, not hot, for about 30 minutes. Regarding butter, you can cut it into small cubes in a plate and leave it for about 15 minutes. To have best results for a wonderful and delicious cake, use fresh eggs, pure vanilla extract, and unsalted butter.

#3 Choosing and Preparing The Cake Pan

The first tip, use new aluminum pans to give the cake a tender crust. This happens because the aluminum will reflect the heat away from the cake. Second, use a suitable sized pan as stated in the recipe. That is because if the pan is too small, the cake mixture may overflow during baking. On the other hand, if the pan is too large, the cake may be burned for over baking or at least you will have a flat cake.

If you do not have the suitable sized pan, try not to fill more than half of the pan with the mixture in the small pan, or double the amount of mixture in the large one. Then, do not forget to adjust the cooking time for it, for it will be different from what is stated in the recipe.

The third tip is to follow the recipe directions in preparing your pan whether to grease it with butter and flour or not. Sometimes, using parchment papers can help, especially, with moistening cakes. It will help the cakes not to stick on the pan`s edges. The parchment is used as an alternative of greasing the pan with softened butter or oil and flour.

The last tip in this stage is for having even layers. For evenly-baked cakes, use the same size and the same shape of the pan to bake all the layers of the cake. This is to avoid having extra edges from the layers and to avoid having domed tops on your cakes.

 #4 Preparing The Mixing

Regarding the ingredients, do not mix all of them at once. However, blend the dry ingredients together before adding them to the wet ingredients. Try to start and end with dry ingredients while mixing.

In addition, during mixing, try to keep moving in one direction making a shape of a circle if you are using a hand mixer not electric. Do not mix in the other way around, or move in an opposite direction because the air that enters the cake while blending in one direction will go out of the mixture in the other. Thus, it will lead to the collapse of the cake while baking.

Since having air into your cake is so important to have a beautiful rise, here is a tip for you. To get much air into your cake, cream the butter and sugar for about five minutes before adding them to the whole batter. This will help to get a fluffy and yellow-lighted texture; accordingly, it will help to get a light cake. Moreover, sifting the flour and baking powder will add more air into the cake and make them easier to fold in the mixture.

While beating the ingredients together, try to beat them normally not to under-beat or overbeat it in order to keep the texture of the cake as perfect as possible. Keep mixing at low speed, specially, after adding the dry ingredients. Keep blending until the whole ingredients are incorporated totally with each other.

To bring the flavors out of your cake, add pinch of salt. When adding more than one flavor into the mixture, start with the vanilla extract to enhance other flavors to be brought out as well.

To ensure baking evenly, fill the pan to the middle. Do not add more than that or it will overflow during baking. For extra batter, you can use it to create beautiful and delicious cupcakes!

#5 Baking the Cake

As mentioned earlier, make sure that you do not fill the pan with more than the middle of the pan or 2/3 of its size maximum.

Preheat the oven for 10 to 15 minutes before baking in the same temperature stated in the recipes. This is to make sure that the cake will rise evenly since the temperature is distributed equally to the whole areas of the cake. To ensure even cooking, you can also position the pan on the middle of the oven.

Make sure not to open the door of the oven for the first 20 minutes, at least, or until the cake is totally set. In this way, you will protect your cake from collapsing. In addition, during the baking period, try to rotate the pans by turning it around so that the front will be in the back of the oven and vise verse. This will make any inconsistencies in the oven up to ensure even baking as well.

Finally, you should stick to the cooking time. The cake will be perfectly baked once you can smell it in the kitchen!  Do not get the cake out of the oven until you insert a skewer in the cake`s centre and this skewer comes out dry and totally clean. If your cake became brown but still not probably cooked, you can cover it with greaseproof paper to protect the cake from being burned. Do not over bake it or you will end up with a dry cake!

#6 Cooling the Cakes 

It is a must to cool the cake before you start adding the filling or frosting to them. Most recipes will state instructions for cooling the cakes, so try to stick to the steps mentioned in your recipe. Still, generally, most of cakes follow the following step. Before taking the cake out of the pan, let it cools for about 20 minutes. However, for the cupcake, you should remove them immediately from the pan and place them on wire rack to cool.

When the cake is completely cooled, it is preferable to surround the cake layers in plastic wrap. Then, place the wrapped cake in freezer for 20 minutes. After that, you can start your creativity and use your imagination for frosting your cake in the way you like. If you do not have enough time for decorating your cake, you can sprinkle it with powdered sugar. The powdered sugar looks great and tastes perfect on almost all kinds of cakes. If you want your frosted cake to look shiny, use a medium heat hair-dryer over the outside of the cake exactly before serving.

Indeed, these tips are but some of the experiences of chiefs, mums and cake-baking geeks who tried hard to get amazingly perfect cakes. Therefore, Let`s try to apply them whenever we make our own lovely homemade cake!