Your Cakes Aren’t Rising? Here’s Why
A rising tide lifts all baked goods
Don’t feel bad, it’s a common issue. Muffins, cupcakes, full-size cakes; they’re all prone to rising issues. And this isn’t just a struggle for plant-based bakers – it happens to everyone. All we have to do is dig into the food science to understand why your cake might sink, and to prevent it in the future.
First, we need to dive into why cakes sink in the first place. In my experience, this is almost always due to one of two issues:
- Too much leavening
- Too little leavening
When we say “leavening”, we’re referring to products/ingredients that contribute to rise, like baking soda, baking powder, and yeast. Now, I know what you might be thinking:
If my cake has too much leavening power,
how could it possibly sink??”
This is one of the most common issues bakers come across when they find out their cake has sunken, and here’s why: in order to get a beautiful, even rise in a baked good, you want it to rise slowly and steadily throughout the entire duration of the bake time. If the leavening power is too strong in a recipe, it will rise too rapidly at the beginning of the bake before the inside is stable, and then *poof*, deflate. This is why I always check on my baked goods a few minutes in. If they look fully risen within the first few minutes, there’s a good chance I need to reduce the leavening ingredients.
Now, the alternative is more obvious: you might just need more leavening power. Look up some recipes that are similar to whatever you’re baking, (preferably ones with good ratings that seem to have a high success rate) see how much of each leavening ingredient they use, and maybe use that as your reference.
Some other things to keep in mind:
Other Ingredients Can Influence Rise
The most common ingredients we use to leaven in plant-based baking are baking soda, baking powder, and yeast. However, some of these ingredients are codependent on other parts of the recipe to react and produce rise. Baking soda, for example, needs an acid to react. Believe it or not, there’s enough acid in brown sugar to make this happen. Interesting right? It’s worth paying attention to.
I recently tested a muffin recipe where I used vinegar instead of lemon juice, and I soon learned that I needed to reduce the amount of baking soda in the recipe, because vinegar reacts much more intensely with baking soda than lemon juice does. My first test batch sank completely. Good to know.
Every Ingredient Has A Shelf Life
Leavening ingredients can all go bad. If you’ve had the same baking powder sitting in your cupboard for a long time, consider replacing it; even if it hasn’t reached expiration yet.
Oven Temperature Matters
If your oven is too hot, the cake will set before it’s risen fully. Try reducing your oven temp by 25 degrees. If it’s not hot enough, the cake will be given too much time to rise, and then sink at the end.
The Over-Under On Mixing
If you over or undermix your batter, you can jeopardize the rise. Overmixing, especially with a whisk, or right after you add ingredients to creamed butter, can incorporated too much air and impair the structure of your cake. Undermix, and you may not develop enough gluten to support your cake. The best rule of thumb is mix all batters just until the ingredients are incorporated. Even a few dry flour lumps are okay. Better than a pothole cake, right? Here’s a little mantra you can repeat to yourself while mixing to keep you sorted:
