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Cake is one of the most basic of baked goods. Wouldn’t you agree? But how to keep a cake moist overnight and how to get it moist and fluffy in the first place is a burning question on every bakers mind.
I am going to address that and so much more in the post so that you can tackle these problems.
What Is Cake?
Cake is a baked good that consists of butter or oil, sugar, eggs, some type of liquid (typically milk) flour, baking soda and baking powder. Cake is a sweet and fluffy, bread-like baked good that typically is accompanied by frosting.
Cake can come in many forms:
Traditional Cake
Traditional cake is what you will typically see. It consists of 2 or 3 layers of cake sandwiched together with frosting or filling. Then the whole thing is covered in frosting and/or fondant.
Doming: Why Does It Happen And How Can I Prevent It?
Doming is the dome or hump that is formed when a cake bakes. You can do 2 things about that. You can prevent it or you can level the cake off.
How Do I Prevent Doming
What I prefer to do when making a cake is to prevent doming all together. This way, very little excess is cut off and nothing is wasted. Now, you can make cake pops with excess but it’s better to not have excess at all in my opinion.
The easiest thing to do is to lower the oven temperature by 50•F or 20•C. This way the cake bakes more evenly. It won’t eliminate the dome completely but it will make it smaller.
I like to create a dip or indent in the middle of my cake batter so that the cake bakes before it has a chance to rise too much in the middle. I do this with my cakes as well with my cookies.
The other thing that you can do to prevent doming is to use baking strips. Baking strips are strips of material that are put on the outer sides of the cake pan. These strips help to distribute the heat and help the cake to bake and rise evenly.
Leveling off The Cake
So, you were unable or forgot to do anything to prevent doming and your cake has domed. Now, what do you do? Well, there are a couple things. Let’s get into it:
1. The first tool that I personally like to use is called a cake leveler. This tool looks a lot like a hand saw. By putting it on the surface and adjusting the height, you can saw off the hump. Leaving a flat top. This is also used to take one cake layer and cut it in half or however many layers that you like.
2. The second method that can be used is just taking a serrated knife and leveling it off that way. Now full disclosure, I don’t use this method, because I always screw it up. But if you use a ruler, you can add in toothpicks to make the level at which to cut. Just remember to keep the knife completely level and don’t cut straight through. Instead, start cutting in the side of the cake and then do not move the knife. Instead, turn the cake turn table to slowly cut through the cake.
A cake roll is basically an inside out cake. It is one single sheet of cake, rolled up with frosting in the middle.
Why Do You Roll The Cake Up While It’s Still Hot? What Is Memory?
A cake is not alive, therefore it can’t have a memory, per say. This is just the term given to this technique. Developing the cakes memory is a technique in which you take the cake right when it comes out of the oven and roll it up in a towel and let it cool.
When it cools the proteins in the flour will relax. This trains the cake in a sense to stay where it is. This technique is the same as when your hair is wet and you put it in curlers, then when it’s dry you take them out and have curls. Same idea. This is just so that when you roll the cake back up with the frosting in between, it won’t crack because it has almost been trained.
Sheet Cake
A sheet cake is 1 sometimes 2 layers of cake baked on a sheet tray so it’s a large slab. Often the top is the only area with frosting. Then it is decorated just like a traditional cake with frosting (I’ll leave the links to all the things you need for that down below.)
How To Make a Cake Moist?
When making a cake, one of the hardest things about it is how to make the cake moist. There are a variety of things that you can do:
How To Make a Moist Cake – Oil Vs. Butter
What this boils down to is a choice between taste and texture. On the one hand, butter will provide that hint of buttery taste while oil being a liquid will provide moisture.
It all come down to the fact that butter is a solid and oil is a liquid so even though both will melt in the oven, butter will still want to go back to its solid form when cooled down to room temperature. Oil will stay a liquid and disperse more and like I said, provide more moisture than butter.
How To Make a Moist Cake – Sour Cream Vs. Buttermilk
In a cake, typically a recipe will call for some type of milk. This thins out the batter and lightens up the crumb. Both with sour cream and with buttermilk, the acidity lightens up the batter and results in a moister and softer final product.
The difference is that sour cream has more of a fat content. This leads to a richer final product. Buttermilk leads to a lighter and fluffier final product but both give moisture.
Greek yogurt is also a great substitute for sour cream. Just note that it has similar fat content to buttermilk.
How To Make a Moist Cake – Do Not Over-Bake
The #1 way to make a moist cake is to not over-bake it. When a cake is over-baked, it dries it out. Even 30 seconds can make the difference. When a cake is done, it should slightly pull away from the sides of the pan, a toothpick inserted in the center should come out with a couple moist crumbs on it and the top should spring back when pressed.
How To Make a Moist Cake and how to keep a cake moist overnight- Simple Syrup
So your cake is perfectly baked. There is one more thing that you can do to ensure a super moist cake.
By boiling a one to one ratio of water and sugar you can make a simple syrup. You can also put add ins to impart flavor to your simple syrup such as lemon, basal, berries, etc.
You can then level the cake off like we talked about above and then drizzle it on.
You can do this in a few ways. Just with a spoon. The drawback of that is it’s tough to get even distribution of the syrup.
The second thing that you can do is use a simple syrup squeeze bottle. Store bought or homemade. To make it homemade just grab a water bottle and poke holes in the lid.
The best way how to keep a cake moist overnight is to spray it with simple syrup and wrap it tightly in plastic wrap.
How To Make a Cake Fluffy
Another difficult but essential characteristic in a cake is for it to be soft and fluffy. There are a number of ways to achieve this.
How To Make a Cake Fluffy – Sift Dry Ingredients
The first thing you should look at if your cake is too dense is ” Did you sift your dry ingredients”? If you didn’t, that is more than likely your problem.
Sifting the dry ingredients eliminates any lumps and makes the dry ingredients lighter. It’s been my experience that most of the incidences of dense cakes and dense baked goods in general that I have made, I got lazy and did not sift the dry ingredients.
How To Make a Cake Fluffy – Use Cake Flour
Cake flour has a lower gluten content than any other flour and has a superfine consistency. This all leads to a softer and fluffier cake. There is no special conversion. Just simply replace any flour with cake flour.
How To Make a Cake Fluffy – Baking Powder and Baking Soda
Baking soda and baking powder is the leavening agent in cakes. If your cake is too dense, just add a bit more baking powder and baking soda. In general, a cake should have 1/4 of a tsp of baking soda per 1 cup of flour.
Baking soda will also react with the acids on your batter such as buttermilk and lemon juice to make the cake lighter and fluffier. But just don’t go overboard. Adding too much baking soda or baking powder can leave your cakes with a bitter aftertaste.
How To Make a Cake Fluffy – Don’t Over Mix
Over-mixing your batter can do a few things. Firstly, overmixing your batter incorporates too much air. This trapped air makes the cake rise in the oven and then fall. This making the cake dense.
The other thing that can happen if the cake is over-mixed is you can develop the gluten in the flour too much making it tough and dense.
What can help to diminish some of the trapped air is when your batter is in the pan, tap it on the counter a few times. This will bring all the air bubble to the top so that they either pop by themselves or you could pop them yourself.
How To Make a Cake Fluffy – Do Not Double Cake Recipes
When a cake recipe is doubled, you run the risk of over-mixing, like we talked about before. The baking powder and baking soda also may not incorporate correctly. Instead, just make the batter twice.
Types of Cake
Along with different forms that cakes can come in there are also several different types of cake.
Yellow Cake
This is a classic vanilla-flavored cake that is the most widely popular.. It gets it’s yellow hue from the extra eggs and egg yolks ( Most cakes just use egg whites). This is a great one to do if you are a beginners because there is no need to separate eggs.
This cake is pretty dense and rich from the egg yolk content so the tips I listed above are very important for this one.
Pound Cake
Pound cake is a very dense and buttery cake that is made with flour, butter, whole eggs and sugar (and baking powder and soda of course). It is typically made in a loaf pan and cut into slices like bread.
White Cake
Speaking of eggs, white cake uses only egg whites to give the cake structure and airiness. This gives the cake it’s white color and a finer and less tender crumb. It also has shortening instead of butter. White cake is the classic choice for wedding cake and confetti cake.
Sponge Cake
Sponge cake is basically a cake with flour, sugar and egg whites. This cake relies on egg whites for the lift and airiness. Most sponge cake recipes do not have fat but sometimes that will be how they make and keep the cake moist. Sponge cake is great because it will absorb flavor from simple syrup and things really well. If you would like to make a cake roll, use a sponge cake because it is very sturdy and flexible so it can be rolled really well.
Chiffon Cake
An example of a sponge cake that uses fat is a chiffon cake. Chiffon cake incorporates egg yolk and oil to keep it moist for a richer and more tender crumb.
Angel Food Cake
Angel food cake is a very light and airy cake the has a very flimsy structure so it’s best made in a bundt pan, tube pan or a loaf pan with berries on the side and a very light dusting of confectioners sugar. It does not have the structural integrity to hold up being stacked or rolled.
Devil’s Food Cake
It’s very fitting that Angel Food Cake is light and soft as a cloud and devil’s food cake is a dark, chocolate based cake that is a little bit more dense. How you make this cake is from using boiled water as the liquid for moistness instead of milk.
The boiled water mixes with the cocoa powder to make a paste. This makes the chocolate taste more intense.
Phew…. that was a lot. If you have made it this far, thanks you so much for reading and I hope this answers all of your questions about how to make a moist and fluffy cake. Making a moist and fluffy cake can be a little tricky but is really is quite simple once you figure out the tips and tricks . It just takes some trial and error. If you have any additional questions, please don’t hesitate to ask. And if you have any techniques or tips that I didn’t share. I would love to hear them in the comments below. If you liked this post and you want to learn how to tackle cheesecake next, click here. And here for bread. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, pinterest , twitter and snapchat to see what I’m up to next. Remember, don’t be afraid to bake a mess. And I’ll see you all next time. Happy Baking!
To do any further research on how to make a moist and fluffy cake or any of the information here check out this link.
https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/prevent-dry-dense-cake/
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