Can You Fix Over Mixed Cake Batter?
Once you over-mix the cake batter it’s impossible to reverse it to a perfect batter. An over-mixed batter can lead to a dense cake, tough texture, and the flavor being off. In addition to the cake not baking correctly.
Here are a few things you can do to avoid making a dense and undesirable cake.
The goal for making cake especially if you are new to baking cake is you want to make it as easy as possible for yourself not harder.
Don’t double the recipe
When following the recipe. make the cake as is. Don’t double the recipe or try to change the recipe in any way. if you have to bake the cake one at a time. Altering the recipe can affect the texture of the cake and cause a cake not to come out the way it’s supposed to.
Sour cream instead of milk
Using sour cream in your recipe instead of milk is one of the best ways to get one of the fluffiest and spongiest cakes ever. It also helps the cake to have a very moist cake without affecting the flavor. Sour cream also acts as an acid ingredient so it works well once combined with baking soda to assist with the cake rising.
If you’re wanting to replace the sour cream instead of using milk here’s how to do it. If the recipe calls for one cup of milk you’re going to split it. You’ll use half a cup of milk and add half a cup of sour cream. It makes all the difference. This almost always guarantees you the perfect soft cake.
Add oil to your recipe
Oil is known to be 100% fat and doesn’t have a lot of hydration compared to butter. It is great for making a cake moist and making it very soft. Oil is popular with using the one-step method when baking as it’s easy to combine with other ingredients. keep in mind this it isn’t an emulsifier so you would still need to use the basic ingredients required for a cake. But you can indeed replace it with butter if making the necessary adjustments. Using oil in your recipe to make a cake can help you avoid having a dry cake.
Overbaking your cake
When you take a cake out of the oven, it continues to cook for a few minutes. Therefore, you should remove your cake from the oven when it’s only partially done so that it will finish baking as it cools off. Overbaking can alter the texture of the cake by having it become too dry, tough, or even burned.
Here are a few ways to test out the cake to see if it’s done. You can do a bounce test by pressing in the cake and if it bounces back it is done. Another way is ripping off a small dime-sized piece of the cake, if it’s wet and it has structure, it means it’s done.
If it’s dry then you’ve gone too far. If you’re still seeing batter it’s a sign that you still need to keep it in the oven for a little bit. The goal is not to have a fully dry cake in the oven. If you’re telling yourself to give the cake a little bit more time in the oven for 2 to 3 minutes and it looks done, take it out.
Cake Flour
If you want to make sure to have a soft cake use cake flour instead of all-purpose flour. It will give you a perfect cake every time. The good thing about using cake flour is the gluten doesn’t develop nearly as much as all-purpose flour so it’s easier to control and you’re less likely to get a dense cake from over-mixing.
Differences Between Cake Flour And All Purpose Flour
All-purpose flour is a staple in most kitchens. People tend to use it because of convenience and plus it is cheaper. Another thing about all-purpose flour is if you’re not experienced and you over-mix your batter, too much gluten will form causing your cake to be dry, and tough -The list can go on.
Check this article to learn more about other scenarios that can affect your cake.
All-purpose flour can have protein as high as 15%, which is perfect if you’re making bread. You would have the best bread ever. But in cake, having a high percentage of protein (Gluten) will cause the cake to be super hard.
The difference with cake flour is it is more expensive. But cake flour will help you get a perfect cake every time for the main reason that there is less protein (Gluten). Cakes made with this type of flour will be softer. It will create a nice fluffy and light cake. Let’s just say it’s hard to mix too much with this type of flour because of the low protein.
We talked about how to avoid having a bad batter AKA dense cake. Now we’re going to talk more about what happens when you get a batter that’s too liquidy. Also, what happens when there’s too much batter and how to deal with it when you have limited cake pans?
Will My Cake Bake If The Batter Is Runny?
When baking a cake with a runny batter there’s a high chance that the cake won’t bake. Because the batter is so thin-very liquidy, it will either not rise properly or become too dense and be unable to bake into a regular cake.
Also just because the cake is not presentable, the cake may be eatable even though it doesn’t have the right structure in place to be a regular cake. Be ready for the cake to not even bake at all and still be wet batter and not rise. Prepare to possibly have to start over and toss the batter.
The biggest thing that can cause a runny batter is mixing it for way too long causing it to be extremely smooth. Be careful of substituting ingredients because if you are not experienced in knowing how much hydration that substitute ingredient has it can affect your batter making it too thin.
For example, if your recipe calls for small eggs and you had large eggs in your fridge and decided to use that instead, that can be one of the reasons for a runny batter. It would be adding unnecessarily extra hydration to the recipe that wasn’t called for.
If your batter is too runny sometimes you can save it by adding small increments of flour to get it back thick again. But this is not a proven fix as sometimes this doesn’t work.
What Happens If You Put Too Much Batter In A Cake Pan?
Putting too much batter in a cake pan without knowing the exact measurements can cause the batter to overflow once it rises in the oven. This can cause a big mess at the bottom of your oven. It’s important to know the exact amount of batter needed in the baking pan to avoid this from happening.
If you have too much batter and you don’t have enough baking pans to bake in. It’s not suggested to leave the batter sitting and then pour it into a hot pan that you just used to bake the first batter.
It will affect the cake and risk the outside of the cake becoming hard and burn faster. There’s a chance it may not rise like how it’s supposed to because the leavening agent has weakened.
What To Do With Too Much Batter
If your recipe makes too much batter, you can halve the recipe. Make the first half of the batter and then bake. Then make the other half of the batter once the 1st batter is ready to come out of the oven and bake.
After you’re done with baking the first half of the batter, wash your pan and make sure that it has cooled down before putting in the 2nd half. You don’t want to put the batter in a still-hot pan because as stated above—it may cause problems.
Weighing The Batter In Baking Pan –Calculations
To get the perfect amount of batter every time for the specific size of your cake pan. The key is you need to know the exact amount of ingredients you need when making your cake. So you don’t waste batter or make too much batter and have to toss it.
To adjust your recipe you will need to know how to decrease the size of your recipe if you’re using a smaller pan or increase the amount of your recipe if you’re using a bigger sized pan.
See the chart below for the measurements for a round pan and the circumference size.
| Cake Pan Size | Round Pan Circumference Size |
| 4 | 12.56 |
| 5 | 19.63 |
| 6 | 28.27 |
| 7 | 38.48 |
| 8 | 50.26 |
| 10 | 78.54 |
| 12 | 113.10 |
| 14 | 153.94 |
You will use the following calculations to use with the recipe. For a 14-inch pan to use with a recipe that called for an 8-inch one. Refer to the numbers on the chart under the circumference section.
New size rounded pan that you are looking to use ÷ The original size pan= Amount to multiple ingredients by
Example
153.94÷50.26=3.06
If the original recipe called for 250 grams of flour you would multiply it by 3.06 = 765 grams of flour.
You would do this for all the ingredients that are in your recipe so that your batter will be enough for your 14-inch pan. You will get the exact measurement for the batter needed that will fit the pan perfectly and will not overflow.