Putting lots of time and effort into making a cake, only for it to sink while baking can be deeply frustrating – and is not uncommon.
Several factors can cause a cake to fall, such as undercooking or using incorrect ingredient amounts in the batter, and sometimes the issue may not even be apparent.
Baking can be tricky because it demands exact measurements to achieve the right chemical reactions among ingredients like leavening agents, liquids, fats, and sugars.
The leavening agent helps the cake rise, but using too much baking powder or baking soda can produce excessive gas, causing the cake to expand too quickly and then collapse once it’s out of the oven.
Or it may be that your oven might not be heating correctly, either not reaching the set temperature or overheating.
To check this, place a few oven thermometers in different spots inside the oven to verify the actual temperature.
Unfortunately, unless you notice that your cake is undercooked as you take it out from the oven, it will not rise again by baking it longer.
Whatever the reason for your sunken cake might be, there is a simple method you can use to solve this disaster and even make your baked confection more appealing.
If you have sweets and sprinkles on hand, you can turn your sunken cake into a surprise-inside cake with sweets that will spill out while it’s being cut.
Create this effect by removing the sunken portion and filling it with candy, then topping it with frosting.
Pie fillings or fruit jams also make delicious additions to a sunken cake.
For a chocolate cake, you can create a black forest cake topper by adding cherry pie filling to the sunken area before adding whipped topping and finishing with more cherries.
An equally easy trick is to add an extra portion of icing or whipped cream and smothering it to disguise the low spot.
