Why cake becomes hard

Similarly, there are a lot of bad habits that can have equal influence on your recipe to negative effect. Changes will alter your results. Especially ones that have structural impact. A cake that is overly dense typically has too much liquid, too much sugar or too little leavening not excess flour, as is commonly thought. A cake that bakes too slowly takes longer to set and may fall, causing a dense texture. Cakes that have holes are problematic, especially if you plan to slice them horizontally.

Holes in cakes are caused by improper mixing generally over-mixing. You can always fill the holes with frosting to cover them up, but of course preventing them in the first place is the better plan. Standing mixers are incredibly efficient, but will mix your cakes very quickly. Make sure your ingredients eggs, liquid and dairy are as close to room temperature as possible to encourage proper mixing.

The culprits for dry cake are ingredients that absorb moisture, such as flour or other starches, cocoa or any milk solids. There are different kinds of cake strips, you just need to select the right one for your cake pan. Once the baking is done, you should take the cake out of the oven and if you are worried about hardening, covering the cake with aluminium foil or a plastic wrap can help retain the moisture.

So anyway, if the cake is dry and hard, let us see how to fix the dry cake or moisten a dry cake by adding moisture to the already baked and hardened or dry cake. After applying the sugar syrup you should cover the cake with an aluminium foil or plastic wrap and let the moisture soften up the cake. If you are planning to frost the cake, you can carefully and gently cutoff the top and edges of the cake and then apply the sugar syrup as mentioned above, which will help to moisten the dry cake further.

You can use a cake leveler to easily cut off the top of the cake evenly, which is also used to slice the single cake into different layers. If you are slicing the cake using a cake leveler, you have more options to add moisture to the cake.

Why does my cake get hard after baking? Ask Question. Asked 3 years, 1 month ago. Active 1 year, 10 months ago. Viewed 8k times. Bake in preheated oven for 30 to 35 minutes. Is there any issue with oven temperature?

How do I fix hard cake? Improve this question. Laila Laila 1, 5 5 gold badges 14 14 silver badges 23 23 bronze badges. Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. Improve this answer. Also worth mentioning that even with the correct sized cup, how you use it to measure affects things, too. Joe yes, thank you for mentioning that. It was the reasoning behind me suggesting first converting to weight, but I never wrote it into the answer itself.

Caleb Caleb 4, 2 2 gold badges 20 20 silver badges 30 30 bronze badges. When this happens, the middle of the cake collapses. Just cover the top of your cake with buttercream to disguise the concave in the centre. Check it again after 10 minutes or so and if it needs longer, bake again. This is unlikely to fix the whole problem but it will make your cake edible, so cover any imperfections with buttercream and icing. To avoid this when you bake again, double check your recipe and make sure to leave your cake to cook in the oven.

Once your cake has been cooked, cut off the top and level the surface with a large bread knife. You can then cover your cake in fondant or buttercream to hide the cut marks. If your cake has shrunk but it cooked the whole way through and looks edible, then eat it. You could also cut your bake up into cubes and make mini cakes instead. Alternatively, cover it in buttercream icing to give it a bit of moisture, or serve with cream or ice cream to make it taste lighter.

If your cake is too crumbly to enjoy, you could cover your cake in icing drizzle and disguise the crumbliness with cake decorations instead. Adding moisture like a light buttercream layer or icing will help to hold some of the cake together. Just make sure everyone has a fork or spoon for eating it. Turning crumbly cake into cake pops is also an easy option, with plenty of recipes out there to teach you the method — from basic cupcake cake pops to toffee apple cake pops. If your cake is hard you may have just overcooked it or over-mixed the mixture when combining ingredients.

When flour is combined with liquid after mixing, the gluten in the flour stars to develop. It creates an elastic-like material and traps the air created by leavening agents, such as baking powder, which helps the cake to rise.

Over-mixing the cake produces too much gluten and turns your soft cake into a bake more similar to bread. Simply mix with a hand or electric whisk until the ingredients have combined.