4 Common Baking Mistakes

Even the best bakers are likely to make small slip-ups. For most, these slip-ups can mean the difference between a great dessert or bread and an inedible food item. It is not unheard of, however, that a mistake, like a wrong added ingredient, does not affect the outcome of your cooking. If you know how to fix your mistakes then your finished product can still turn out okay in the end.

Here are four of the most common, yet entirely fixable, baking mistakes:

Your cake or bread falls apart or sticks to the pan after baking
First of all, you have to resist the temptation to take your finished product out of the pan or off of the baking sheet until they cool. If it is still warm it will lead to half of it sticking to the pan and the other half coming off. Allow sufficient time for your dessert to cool so that the whole dessert picks up cleanly and easily. A second reason why you might fall victim to this mistake is that the pan that it was baked in was not a non-stick pan or was not lined with oil, flour, or butter. This simple step in the beginning of your baking process is necessary to ensure a successful final product, so always remember to follow through with it.

You have a sink in the center of your baked goods (and they are not doughnuts)
This can be caused by a number of mistakes, the first of which is continuous opening and closing of the oven door. If you want to check on your dessert look through the oven window until baking time is nearly completed. The constant open and close exposure to cold air will make your dessert fall. Another reason you might have a sink in your dessert is that there was too much liquid in the batter for your dessert. A cake that has too much liquid will not rise as it normally should, leaving you with a wet mess.

Your cake is undercooked in the center
When you take your cake out of the oven, if it is well cooked on the outside and undercooked in the center, then it is likely that you used the wrong oven temperature. Before you place your dessert in the oven, be sure that you are setting the oven temperature to the appropriate setting. If your oven is set to 450° instead of 350° you have created too much heat for your cake. Putting your cake back in the oven will only lead to a burned cake, so the solution to this problem is to double check your temperature settings.

You misread the recipe for your dessert
Sometimes, we are just not as focused on baking as we should be. For even serious bakers it is possible to misread a recipe and add too much flour, or too few eggs. These mistakes are part of human nature. However, it is important to double check your work when baking. This means that if you think you have read a 1/2 cup of milk, pour the milk in the measuring cup, but before you add it to your mixing bowl look back at your recipe for verification that indeed it calls for a 1/2 cup. While this might seem to take an extra second or two, you will be glad when your final product comes out identical to the recipe and no doubt delicious.




Criss White is an article writer and baking enthusiast who enjoys baking decorated cookies and other holiday cookies. Criss also enjoys hosting parties when not writing.