This Is Why Cakes Fall — and How You Can Save ‘Em (2024)

This Is Why Cakes Fall — and How You Can Save ‘Em (1)

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Picture this: you’ve whipped up a seemingly-perfect batch of cake batter, poured it carefully in your pan and slid it into the oven. You expect a beautiful cake to come out … only to notice it’s completely sunk. Talk about a total bummer.While cakes can fall for a lot of different reasons, these are the most common culprits — and how to deal with them.

Too Little or Too Much Moisture

If your cake isn’t moist enough, it can sink in the center. But too much moisture can also ruin a cake. This happens most often in humid climates, where extra moisture can collect naturally in ingredients like flour. It causes cakes to rise quickly and then crater during the baking process.

What to do: Follow the recipe carefully, and when possible, weigh your ingredients rather than measuring them using cups. If you live in a humid climate, keep your dry ingredients in the freezer so they stay dry.

Poor Planning

If you forgot to add the eggs at the right time and then mixed them in later, you may pay the price with a fallen cake.

What to do: Read the recipe all the way through before you begin baking. Create a clean work area with all your ingredients pre-cut, prepared and measured. Having everything organized ahead of time will help you keep calm and follow the recipe.

Wrong Oven Temperature

Even if the temperature is set correctly on the dial, it doesn’t necessarily mean that’s the actual temperature inside your oven.

What to do: Check your oven periodically with a heatproof thermometer to make sure your dial is accurate.

Pro TipMost cakes bake best in the 350 F range (give or take 25 degrees in either direction). If your recipe calls for something much higher or lower, it should explain why.

Under-Baking

If your cake looks puffy and golden on top but sinks and turns gummy in the middle, you probably didn’t bake it long enough.

What to do: Don’t depend on visual cues to figure out whether the cake is done. Test it by inserting a skewer or cake tester. If it comes out mostly clean, that means your cake is fully baked.

Not Enough Emulsification

The term sounds more complicated than it is. Emulsification, in baking, basically amounts to combining and binding two substances that normally wouldn’t adhere (like butter and liquid). If you haven’t creamed your butter mixture enough, then it may curdle when you add in the other ingredients and chances are your cake will fall.

What to do: Unless the recipe specifies that batter “should look curdled,” it probably shouldn’t. Be sure to cream your butter mixture before adding other ingredients to prevent an unwanted result.

Too Much Leavening

You need leaveners, like baking soda and powder, to make your cake rise. But too much can cause your cake to rise super-fast in the oven, then fall once you pull it out.

What to do: Be careful when measuring your baking soda and powder quantities, and make sure not to get them confused. (It’s easy to accidentally add a tablespoon of one when you should’ve added just a teaspoon.)

Geography

Are you in a hot, humid climate? Or at a very high altitude? These conditions can make a big difference in how your baking turns out. High-altitude baking, for instance, can make your cakes come out flat even if you follow the recipe word for word.

What to do: Check to see if your cookbook or recipe source has special instructions for high-altitude baking. If not, Google an alternative — you’re likely to find one.

How to Salvage a Fallen Cake

Here’s the good news: as long as your cake is baked all the way through, you can rescue it. First, taste it to make sure another issue, like too much baking soda, hasn’t messed up the flavor. If it hasn’t, level the cake — you’ll end up with a slightly thinner cake, but will still have a cake.

If the cake dropped too low to level and work as a layer, consider repurposing it. Leftover cake can be used as an ice cream topping, for example, or as the base of homemade cake pops.

Unfortunately, if your fallen cake is under-baked and still batter-like in the middle, you may be dealing with risky food-safety issues. In that case, it’s best to throw out the cake and start from scratch.

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Get go-to tips and mouth-watering cake recipes in our class, Modern Methods for Classic Cakes.

FAQs

This Is Why Cakes Fall — and How You Can Save ‘Em? ›

If your cake isn't moist enough, it can sink in the center. But too much moisture can also ruin a cake. This happens most often in humid climates, where extra moisture can collect naturally in ingredients like flour. It causes cakes to rise quickly and then crater during the baking process.

Get More Info ›

What does it mean when a cake falls? ›

The most common reasons a cake sinks in the middle include the following: The pan is too small. There's too much liquid. Opening the oven or moving pans during baking.

When the cake was removed from the oven it slumped and collapsed What was the cause? ›

Baking in an Oven That's Too Hot or Cold

The big loose structure won't be able to support the weight of the batter and will collapse.

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Why is cake sunk in the middle? ›

What Causes A Cake To Sink In The Middle? Using too-small tins, not mixing your wet batter right, or being too rough with the oven door often leads to a huge baking flop.

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How do you salvage a dropped cake? ›

If you mean a cake with cracks in it, that is easi)y fixed with frosting. If the cake is broken into chunks of cake, you can use the cake pieces in a trifle. A recipe for trifle can be found online, but it usually is layers of cake, pudding and fruit.

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Can you put a sunken cake back in the oven? ›

If you notice quickly that your cake is underbaked, you can pop it back into the oven to finish baking. This will not 'fix' the sinkage or help it rise any further, but it may help salvage the inedible center of the cake. This needs to be done quickly, however.

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How to salvage sunken cupcakes? ›

If you add too much batter to the cupcake cavities, the batter will rise too much and will consequently fall and deflate, which will leave the middle of the cupcakes looking sad and sunken. How to fix: fill up each cavity with up to 2/3 of the way with batter.

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How to stop things sinking in cakes? ›

The best way to avoid sinking fruit is to toss the fruit in a couple of tablespoons of the flour (just use some from the measured amount for the recipe) to coat it lightly. Once added to the cake mixture the flour coating will thicken the batter immediately surrounding the fruit and help suspend the fruit.

Can you put an undercooked cake back in the oven? ›

If the cake is still hot or warm, you can return it to the oven to bake it until it's done. Once an underbaked cake has cooled, you cannot salvage it as a proper cake. However, you can bake it and then use it for other purposes, such as cake crumbles to sprinkle over ice cream or smoothies.

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How to fix a soggy cake? ›

If your cake has a soggy middle, the first thing to try is bringing the temperature down a little and baking for slightly longer. I'd suggest reducing the temperature by 20 degrees and increasing the baking time for 7 minutes.

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Why is my cake pale yellow instead of golden brown? ›

Likewise, if your cake isn't brown enough it is likely because it is under-cooked or the recipe used insufficient egg or sugar.

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Why does chiffon cake collapse? ›

If your cake rose in the oven but then collapsed the more likely cause is that it was underbaked. When you bake a batter it forms a crystalline structure which holds its shape, if it's not baked long enough this structure won't be properly formed, and will collapse and be dense as you describe.

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Why do cakes dome in the middle? ›

- The cake tin is heating up faster than the cake: When this happens the edges of the cake set before the cake has properly risen. So, while the rest of the cake cooks, it rises in the centre and creates a dome.