This document outlines common cake baking problems and their causes. It identifies 9 common problems: 1) dry cake from overbaking or too much flour, 2) wet bottom from too much liquid, 3) sunken middle from opening the oven too much or underbaking, 4) outside done before middle from high oven heat, 5) holes from over mixing, 6) dense texture from over mixing or improper flour measuring, 7) lack of rise from insufficient leavener, 8) tough texture from over mixing or too much flour, 9) cracked top from too much leavener or high heat. For each problem, common reasons are provided such as baking time, temperature, or ingredient issues.

1. C O M M O N C A K E B A K I N G P R O B L E M S A N D W H Y T H E Y H A P P E N :
C A K E B A K I N G P R O B L E M # 1 : T H E C A K E I S T O O D R Y
Reasons Why:
 Baked too long.
 Too much flour or not enough moisture in the recipe.
 Baked at a lower temp for too long.
 It could just be the recipe.
C A K E B A K I N G P R O B L E M # 2 : T H E C A K E I S W E T O N T H E B O T T O M
Reasons Why:
 Too much liquid in the recipe
C A K E B A K I N G P R O B L E M # 3 : T H E C A K E S U N K I N T H E M I D D L E
Reasons Why:
 Opened the oven door too much, or slammed it shut.
 Too much leavener, so the cake rose up too quickly, then fell.
 Oven temperature could be too high or low either one.
 It was underbaked, pulled out of the oven too soon when the middle wasn’t baked yet.
C A K E B A K I N G P R O B L E M # 4 : T H E C A K E I S D O N E O R O V E R - B A K E D O N T H E
O U T S I D E , B U T N O T D O N E I N T H E M I D D L E
Reasons Why:

2.  Oven temp is too high, so the outside baked before the middle had a chance to.
C A K E B A K I N G P R O B L E M # 5 : T H E R E A R E H O L E S I N T H E C A K E
Reasons Why:
 Over mixing the batter.
 Mixing at too high a speed.
C A K E B A K I N G P R O B L E M # 6 : T H E C A K E I S T O O D E N S E
Reasons Why:
 Over-mixed the batter.
 Make sure to measure the flour correctly-don’t pack it down when measuring.
 Oven was too cool.
C A K E B A K I N G P R O B L E M # 7 : T H E C A K E D I D N ’ T R I S E
Reasons Why:
 Insufficient leavener, or forgot to add it in.
C A K E B A K I N G P R O B L E M # 8 : T H E C A K E I S T O U G H
Reasons Why:
 Over mixing the batter.
 Too much flour.
C A K E B A K I N G P R O B L E M # 9 : T H E C A K E I S C R A C K E D O N T H E T O P
Reasons Why:

3.  Too much leavener.
 Heat is too high.
 A lot of times, these cakes are fine to eat, you’ll just want to trim the dome off the top, if
there’s one.