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Baking should be fun, not stressful and by avoiding these five mistakes you'll
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end up with a cake that looks and tastes amazing! Overmixing your batter is a guaranteed way to make a tough, dense cake. For butter-based recipes you
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do need to cream the butter and sugar together for several minutes to make a light and fluffy
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base for your cake but as soon as you've added the flour you need to slow things down and be gentle
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only mixing until everything is just incorporated but no longer than that. As soon as you add the
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flour the gluten in it will start to develop and that's what can make a cake tough so as soon as
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you can't see the separate ingredients in your batter anymore it's mixed so it's time to stop
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Old baking powder isn't dangerous to eat but it doesn't do its job anymore
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Look what happens to this cake that was made with expired baking powder. It stops rising before it's
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finished baking and you can see it's dense instead of springy and on the inside it's doughy instead
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of cakey. You can check if your baking powder is still active by pouring boiling water over a
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spoonful of baking powder and if it bubbles it's fine but if it doesn't do anything then if you use
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it in your baking it won't do anything there either. Don't use it past the expiration date or
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after six months after you open it. You'll be excited for your cake or cupcakes or whatever to
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be ready but if you open the oven door several times to check on it while it's baking you'll let
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cold air rush into the oven and the temperature won't stay constant. What happens next? The edges
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of the cake will bake normally but the heat won't go all the way through so the middle will be
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undercooked and it will sink. This doesn't look or taste good and there's no way to fix it because
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if you put it back in the oven you'll burn the edges of the cake by the time the middle cooks
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through. To prevent this use the light in the oven to see what's happening and only open the door
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five minutes before the time listed on the recipe. I troubleshoot all sorts of issues like over-rising
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cakes, domed cakes, under-baked cakes and what happens if you use too much or too little of
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ingredients like flour and sugar in my Basics of Cake Master Course. I'll show you why these things
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happen and how to avoid them. You'll learn to perfect the foundation of your cakes with modules
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on every step of making a cake. Mixing, baking, leveling and dividing cake layers, making fillings
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and frostings, assembling cakes, frosting, decorating, storing, transporting and serving. The link for the course with a discount is in the top of the screen or check the video description or go
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to britishgirlbakes.com. After baking your cakes it's tempting to flip the pans over straight away
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but the cakes are still very fragile because the baking process continues as the cakes cool
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If you turn the cakes out now they're likely to crack and crumble because they haven't had a chance
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to firm up properly. The opposite is true too. Don't wait too long to turn the cakes out because
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once they cool they can stick to the pans and chunks of cake will cling to the pans instead
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of coming out neatly with the rest of the cake. As a guide I use this trick. Wait until you can
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pick the pans up comfortably with your bare hands. They'll still be very warm but not burning. At this
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point the cakes have cooled enough to firm up slightly but not so much that they'll stick to
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the pans. If your layers do crack or crumble don't throw away. I'll show you how to fix them in this
