If you find yourself producing cakes that are lopsided, cracked, or domed, don’t worry. It’s not because of a single error on your part. Rather, it’s usually a culmination of small habits you have that don’t seem like a big deal but over time affect the structure of the cake. Being mindful of how you mix batter and how the batter responds to heat will help. In fact, it starts even before you put the cakes in the oven. It begins with how you treat ingredients.
The first thing to do is to take note of how you mix batter. Mixing batter too fast or too long incorporates unwanted air or breaks down the structure of the batter, resulting in an unpredictable structure. A good exercise is to prepare a small batch of batter, mixing one half slowly in a circular motion and another half rapidly, then baking both and observing the crumb structure and the structure of the cake. It’s easier to be mindful of how you mix when you can compare different mixing actions than when you prepare batter as you normally do. With time, you should be able to tell when the batter is well combined and smooth without overmixing it.
The next thing to do is to take note of how you pour batter into the cake pan. Pouring batter into one area of the pan creates a structural imbalance in the batter, leading to an uneven rise. Rather than pouring batter into one spot, take some time to evenly pour batter into the pan. Gently tap the pan on the counter to remove large air bubbles that you see, but don’t overdo it. Tapping the pan too many times will break the structure of the batter, undoing your best efforts. Simply taking the time to evenly pour batter into the pan may improve the appearance of your cake on its own.
Another thing to pay attention to is how heat travels into the batter. Removing the cake from the oven too early to check on it causes the center of the cake to collapse while the outside of the cake finishes rising. The most common cause of this error is curiosity. So try to keep the cake in the oven as long as possible, removing it only after you can see that it’s set. If you find that your cake browns on one side more than the other, rotate the pan halfway through baking to distribute heat evenly, especially if you have an oven that runs hotter on one side than the other.
A good daily practice to do is to spend 15 minutes or so preparing a small batch of batter and paying attention to how you mix the batter and how you pour it into the cake pan. Pour the batter into a small cake pan and bake it, observing how the cake structure turns out without complicating the process with other ingredients and steps. The next day, prepare another cake using the same batter, but this time modify one thing, such as mixing the batter a little longer or evening the batter out more. Continuing this process daily will help you gain control over the process. It’s better than trying to tackle a large, complicated recipe that uses techniques you don’t fully understand yet.
If you produce an ugly cake, don’t immediately try to make another cake. Instead, try to identify one factor that could have caused the error. Was the batter overmixed? Was the oven temperature off? Was the pan not centered in the oven? Identifying one error at a time will help you identify a pattern in how you work and where you need to improve. Over time, you will gain the control you need to consistently produce beautiful cakes with flat tops and straight sides.