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Cake rising then falling??

post #1 of 6
1/27/12 at 3:51pm
Thread Starter 
Sorry if this has been posted before....
Lately, whenever I bake a cake, or cupcakes, they start rising beautifully, then about 3/4th of the way through baking, they level out. This is fine for a cake, but for cupcakes, I like to have a small dome but they end up completely flat.

What is happening???

TFH!
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post #2 of 6
1/27/12 at 4:09pm
There are a lot of reasons, but without posting what recipe you are using it's impossible to troubleshoot.
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post #3 of 6
1/27/12 at 8:49pm
Yup, there a number of reasons this could be happening, here are a number of culprits:

Opening the oven door too soon - you should only start checking in the last few minutes of recipe stated cooking time, opening the door not only destabilizes the structure of the cake, but also drops the temperature which takes a bit to build back up

Overmixing - will cause the cake to rise too quickly resulting in a weak structure that will result in sinking

Oven temperature - get a thermometer specific for the oven, mine was off by 15 degrees from what it was set to

Check your recipes - but if you have used them previously without issue then this is obviously not the problem

Check your ingredients - unbleached flour is not a great option for baking, again the structure will be weaker, so if you used to use bleached and now bought unbleached, switch back

I hope this helps.

Alina
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post #4 of 6
1/27/12 at 8:50pm
Yup, there a number of reasons this could be happening, here are a number of culprits:

Opening the oven door too soon - you should only start checking in the last few minutes of recipe stated cooking time, opening the door not only destabilizes the structure of the cake, but also drops the temperature which takes a bit to build back up

Overmixing - will cause the cake to rise too quickly resulting in a weak structure that will result in sinking

Oven temperature - get a thermometer specific for the oven, mine was off by 15 degrees from what it was set to

Check your recipes - but if you have used them previously without issue then this is obviously not the problem

Check your ingredients - unbleached flour is not a great option for baking, again the structure will be weaker, so if you used to use bleached and now bought unbleached, switch back

I hope this helps.

Alina
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post #5 of 6
2/2/12 at 1:02am
I get exactly the same thing, despite using an oven thermometer, mixing only briefly by hand, not opening the oven door etc. However, for me it is a plus because I want my cupcakes to have flat tops!

When I went to a cupcake class I was told that if you want flat tops, cook on a lower temperature for longer and for domed tops, cooking for a shorter time at a higher temperature forces the batter to push up the middle, due to the sides cooking quicker. You could try increasing your oven temperature a little.

Also, what happens if you just add more batter to your liners? Do they sink and spill over the sides of the liners?
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post #6 of 6
2/2/12 at 10:31am
PP has it right about the oven temp. That would be the first change I would try.
www.superstarpastrydesign.com
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