Why sponges sink

Baking can be very sensitive to moisture , so if you live in a damp area, you may have to be more cautious. Even a minute change in moisture content inside the ingredients may make your cake look ugly by sinking in the middle.

As a result, all your hard work will go in vain! Elements such as eggs, milk, essences, which we keep in the fridge, may also cause this nuisance if you use them directly from the refrigerator. Humans are pretty awesome as they have solutions for every problem of life.

At the outset, you have to know your oven. Here are some factors that you may need to ensure for baking the layers to the perfect. While baking cakes, always use fresh and comparatively new raw materials. Take a look at the expiration date of baking soda, baking powder, flour, etc. Because sometimes old and damp elements can be a significant reason for the sinking.

Besides, butter is ideal for whipping when in room temperature. On the other hand, too warm melted butter will also break down, causing the consistency and texture of the cake to change. So, use room temperature ingredients to avoid the hazard. Measuring accuracy is the key to success in baking.

You must count all the ingredients carefully according to the recipe. Using measuring cups and spoons can be of great help in this regard. You can wait up to minutes while the first batch bakes, but a few hours will definitely lessen the quality of your batter and hence may cause sinking. If your batter is sitting on the counter or the fridge, the air created inside will escape into the room, and come time for baking, there will be less to lift the cake.

To put it shorty, the reasons why do cakes sink in the middle may involve inadequacy in oven temperature, expire ingredients, overbeating, inaccurate measurements, etc. But to get your desired cake you can easily overcome the problems by using new and fresh raw materials, thermometer, and being accurate in measuring. If you are interested in building your career as a baker, please do visit our website and learn from our world-class expert online. Click Here. Happy Baking! Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly.

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It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website. Table of Contents. This creates a doughy, dense texture in the center of your cake layer. Bake your cake layers a couple minutes longer! The cake is ready when the toothpick comes out with a few moist crumbs. The third possible culprit is too much leavening agent, or the wrong type. Too much leavening agent like baking soda or powder can cause a cake to rise too high too quickly.

The gas from the leavening agents builds up and escapes before the cake bakes through in the center. This causes the center to collapse and makes your cake layers sink in the middle. Always level the top of the spoon with either the top of the box or a knife to make sure you are using the right amount.

Baking soda is about 3x more potent than baking powder, and they are not interchangeable. Be sure to carefully read the amount of leavening agents a recipe calls for, and measure them precisely with a teaspoon or digital scale. There also is a chance that the recipe might be bad! Sadly not all recipes are formulated correctly, and sometimes this can also be the problem. If you try making a certain recipe a few times and your cake is still sinking in the middle, you may want to try a new recipe.

If you need to rotate your pans, be sure to carefully close your oven door after doing so. Or if you want to sneak a peek at your cake layers, try to just look through the oven door rather than opening it.

Another culprit is your oven! Unfortunately not all ovens bake accurately. You can run into some serious problems if your oven runs hot or cold. For example, say your oven runs a bit cool. This might make you think the cake is baked through. Test your oven temperature with an oven thermometer. If your runs cold, adjust the temperature of your oven to ensure it bakes at the actual temperature the recipe calls for.

Or if your oven runs hot, adjust it down as needed. Using a different pan size than a recipe calls for can drastically change the bake time required. It can cause your cake layers to be quite a bit thicker or thinner than the recipe intends. I recommend using flower nails if you need to bake cake layers that are larger than a recipe calls for.

When I bake large cake layers or sheet cakes, I like to place a few flower nails evenly apart in the center of each pan. This helps the layers bake more evenly and quickly, because they help conduct heat into the center of the cake layer. I thought it was a good one, but now I think it could use some more work and be better! Dropping a cake seems so counterintuitive! I appreciate you sharing your results. My cakes are rather unpredictable. In fact, for birthdays, my family now requires me to use a box mix, since those are generally foolproof.

You know, I've been curious about this as well! Interesting to see that it actually causes it to collapse more. I love your baking science posts!! I am a bit of a baking nerd myself, so I love to read them. Super informative and I love the video!

Glad to hear I don't have to resort to dropping my freshly-baked cakes on the counter to make sure they don't slump. PS: If you need any help with ummm In the name of science and all that. I always drop my cakes from about 18 inches above the counter two or three times before I put them in the oven. This helps to remove the air bubbles and to bake evenly.

I once saw a chap on telly showing how to drop a cake onto the counter after baking. Cakes are naturally going to shrink after the heat is taken away, so I expect shrinkage anyway since cold condensed.

But I do do the drop now. As a matter of choice and course. I get a sponges result! Hi Janice, Thank you for this post! I have been trying a lot of recipes to make the perfect fluffy sponge cake, but something seems amiss, the fluff isn't happening!! I would love to hear from you about this. So glad you enjoyed this post. I'm not a vegan baker but I would look into baking with aqua faba as an egg replacement if you want to make a fluffy sponge cake, which depends on eggs for leavening.

Your email address will not be published. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Facebook Instagram Pinterest Twitter. Vanilla cake and milk chocolate frosting ». Baking resources Baking ingredients and pantry staples Baking substitutions Common baking conversions Choosing baking pans How to measure ingredients for baking Mixing methods. Comments I loved this! Great job with the video!