5 Quick Steps In Making The Perfect Cake

Cakes have always been a staple in every celebration – birthdays, graduations, and weddings, to name a few. It is considered the most popular and recognizable food in a celebration feast. And for many, a celebration won’t be the same if the cake isn’t on the table.

There’s no need to wait impatiently for the next birthday to enjoy a good slice of this tasty treat. You can satisfy your cake cravings by baking one. If you’re not a baker, it might be challenging initially, but you can do it with the proper guidance and techniques.

So, here’s our cheat sheet on how to make the perfect cake in just five easy steps.

Step 1 – Gather the Ingredients

Before you start getting mess all over your kitchen, ensure all the ingredients you need to bake a cake are complete. These include eggs, flour, sugar, and butter. Other ingredients would depend on the cake you are baking and the flavor you want it to have.

Preparing the exact amount of ingredients you need is an important technique in making baking easy and quick. With this, it’s time to start your prep. First, cut the butter to the needed amount and then break the four eggs you’ll be using.

You might have heard that baking leans more toward science. Because of that, accurate measurement is necessary. So, to ensure that, use an electronic balance to measure the amount of flour and sugar needed.

Preparing them beforehand will save you time as you don’t need to measure ingredients while you’re in the middle of baking. It also helps avoid additional mess from happening.

Step 2 – Prepare the Baking Equipment

When starting your baking journey, you must ensure you have all the necessary baking equipment. This includes the oven, weighing scale, mixer, and baking pans. Hence, ensure you have secured, cleaned, and prepared the basic equipment for an efficient baking process.

Avoid making novice baking mistakes like only heating the oven when the batter is ready. If you let it sit outside the oven for too long, your cake batter will lose air, making your cake heavy and stiff. Moreover, don’t forget to grease the baking pan. Failure to grease the pan means you’ll have difficulty removing the cake from the pan after baking.

Step 3 – Follow the Recipe

As mentioned before, baking is a science. Hence, following the directions of a recipe is critical. It’s essential to have the right amount of ingredients, the correct order of preparation, the appropriate baking pan size, and the accurate temperature for baking. When you change one or two things in the recipe, what could be a delicious cake may end up in disaster.

It’s why expert bakers always remind novice bakers to measure the ingredients precisely. Depending on the recipe, a specific amount of ingredients should be followed to ensure a perfect cake.

You must also follow the mixing direction indicated in the recipe since how you mix the ingredients matters in baking. Changing it, even slightly, could result in a different cake texture than what you intended.

Step 4 – Let the Cake Cool

In the desire to immediately get a taste and see whether the cake turned out right, bakers tend to skip the cake-cooling step. Once the cake is out of the oven, many would even start frosting and decorating the cake. Waiting for the cake to cool can be difficult for impatient bakers.

Impatient bakers think that the cake-cooling step is a waste of time. They argue they could use the time to perfect other steps like decorating and frosting. However, letting the cake cool or be chilled has its benefits.

When the cake has been chilled enough, it would be easier to frost. Doing so would also improve results as it prevents crumbs and lopsidedness. So, don’t skip this step to achieve the perfect smooth and frosted cake you wish to see.

Step 5 – Place the Right Frosting and Decoration

When you make a cake, you tend to be adventurous with the frosting you use. However, it is important that the frosting you use complements the cake’s flavor while still looking good when applied.

There are frostings that tend to overpower the cake in flavor and design. It helps to remember that having a delicious cake is good, but having both a beautiful and tasty cake is better.

Moreover, decorating your cake should be based on what kind of cake you want. You can also celebrate an event properly by picking the right decorations to put on it. For example, if you’re baking a birthday cake, you’ll want candles and the celebrant’s favorite things on it. If it’s a wedding cake, you’ll need a wedding topper and some flower fondant.

Final Thoughts

Enjoying a slice of a delicious cake doesn’t have to involve going to the store to buy a slice. You can easily just do it yourself! With proper guidance, technique, and the five quick and easy step tips, you can easily taste the sweet success of a perfectly baked, homemade cake every single day.