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A failed baking frustrates and confuses.
But there is hope: discover the factors that often lead to baking mistakes.
Baking is a science, they often say – and I love science.
So much so that I considered studying medicine for a while during my studies.
(I'm a doctor's daughter, I couldn't help it!) Unfortunately, it was short-lived.
But my love of figuring out why something works or doesn't work has never faded.
And this is where my passion for baking comes into play.
As much as I get excited when I hear from readers who have baked something successfully, I get even more excited when I can help people understand why a recipe didn't work and how to fix the problem.
A failed bake is incredibly frustrating and often confusing.
Baking can be fun – if you don’t get in your own way.
(Symbolic image).
© Oleksandr Latkun/Imago
When someone contacts me about a failed bake, I put together a list of questions and theories for them.
Then we start solving the problem.
In my experience, something has gone wrong while baking, and there's a good chance it's due to one of the following five things.
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Five common mistakes when baking: You didn't weigh the ingredients
My first question to home bakers is always, "Do you weigh your ingredients?" I believe that using a scale is the most important thing you can do to be successful and achieve what the recipe developer intended.
Weight is more precise than volume.
How much of an ingredient you get into a measuring cup can depend on how full the ingredient is, how you scooped it, and the nature of the cup itself.
Even measuring cups with the same stated volume may contain different amounts;
in the case of flour, this variation can be up to 20 percent depending on the baker, according to
America's Test Kitchen
.
When baking, even small variations in flour or sugar, especially if they increase with multiple cups, can mean the difference between success and failure.
They baked in a glass pan instead of a metal pan
A few years ago the food team hosted a lunch with our colleagues from the
post office
, where we talked about some of our recent work and were able to ask questions.
A reporter asked why her brownies never baked through.
My answer: Did she use a glass baking dish?
Bingo.
One of the things I've since discovered is that this was the reason a reader's carrot bread was raw in the middle.
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Dough is mixed in a glass bowl.
© Stacy Zarin Goldberg/The Washington Post
The essential thing: Glass heats up slowly.
Metal heats up faster.
With glass (or ceramic), the slower heat transfer means the food takes longer to bake than with metal.
If you take out a cake or even a batch of brownies or blondies when the faster-hardening edges seem to be done, the center may still be raw.
If you wait until the center is done, when the heat finally penetrates, the edges are likely to be overcooked.
Additionally, as the pan cools, they may dry out further because the heat is retained.
Your oven wasn't at the right temperature
Successful baked goods depend on the right temperature.
I've had cookies run rather than set if I was impatient with preheating.
And anyone who bakes bread knows how important heat is when it comes to that coveted oven bounce.
I have repeatedly emphasized the importance of knowing the actual temperature of the oven - and not what it claims to be - so much so that my regular readers have taken notice and told me: what a difference that makes.
Persistence, it works!
(“After seeing the suggestion several times in this chat, I finally bought an oven thermometer,” wrote one participant in one of our recent weekly live chats).
In many ovens, the set temperature has not yet been reached when the preheating chime sounds.
For me this usually takes at least 15 minutes, if not longer.
Get a standalone thermometer and check what it reads when the alarm goes off.
If you find that your oven is consistently above or below the value you have indicated on the scale, adjust accordingly, calibrate it yourself or with the help of a professional.
You didn't mix enough
A week before Christmas, I received a plaintive email in my inbox.
A reader's beloved ginger cookies were out of control - literally - when they spread too much and became crunchy just days before her son was expecting her home.
I sent her my standard questions, but it wasn't until I saw the recipe and the photo of the spoiled cookies that everything became clear to me.
My theory: The flat, holey cookies were the result of under-mixing, perhaps at the creaming stage of butter and sugar, but more likely at the point where the dry ingredients were added.
Some of the cookies looked good enough, others had the telltale appearance of portions of dough that had been scraped from the edges of the bowl with too little flour.
The reader made a second batch, making sure to cream the butter and sugar and, most importantly, thoroughly incorporate the dry ingredients.
With success!
Lesson: Whether you mix by hand or use a stand mixer or hand mixer, be meticulous about scraping the bowl regularly, between each ingredient, and more often if necessary.
Butter and sugar tend to stick to the edges.
When recipes call for softened butter, make sure it is not cold and solid or warm and soupy for best results.
Cook's Country
says that butter should give slightly when pressed in its "sweet spot."
If you have a thermometer, you should make sure that the temperature of the butter should be between 16 and 18 degrees.
You substituted an ingredient incorrectly
I can't tell you how many times we've heard from people wondering why a recipe didn't work when they swapped almond flour for all-purpose flour.
To be honest, every time you substitute one ingredient for another, you risk problems.
That doesn't mean you shouldn't do it.
What it does mean is that you should think through your change and determine whether it represents a significant change in the composition and function of the ingredients.
In the case of almond and all-purpose flour, they are two fundamentally different ingredients – nuts and wheat.
Their ability to absorb moisture, stabilize doughs and expand during baking is not the same.
That's why it's so important to take the time to understand how the ingredients work and what they do.
If you want to make a substitution and the original recipe doesn't address it, look for other examples.
If you want to do it, someone else has probably already done it.
For special dietary needs, sometimes it's best to find a different recipe designed with those parameters in mind.
About the author
Becky Krystal
is an editor and recipe developer for
Washington Post Food
.
After several years as a reporter in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, she joined The Washington Post in 2007 to
work for
TV Week
and
Sunday Source .
During her time at the
post office,
she also worked in the travel section for five years.
We are currently testing machine translations. This article was automatically translated from English into German.
This article was first published in English on February 19, 2024 at the “Washingtonpost.com” - as part of a cooperation, it is now also available in translation to readers of the IPPEN.MEDIA portals.