Simple Cake Recipes: 6 Tips for Baking Cakes

There are a few key parts of cake making that not only turn out better cakes, but make life easier after putting in all the effort of making cake batter. Listed below are helpful tips for baking cakes:

1. 1. Preheat the oven. Putting cake batter into an unevenly heated oven can result in an unevenly baked cake. This won’t yield the desired look for layer cakes, and there’s a risk of overbaking parts of the cake and underbaking other parts.
2. 2. Use the correct size pans. Many layer cake recipes call for eight-inch pans, resulting in usually two eight-inch cake layers. There is some wiggle room with the sizes, but the most important thing is not to overfill the pans. Always leave at least a half an inch between the cake batter and the top of the pan.
3. 3. Prepare the cake pans. Whether you butter and flour the pans (or use cocoa powder for chocolate cakes), spray them with a cooking spray, line them with parchment paper, or use cupcake liners, well prepared pans ensure the cake won’t stick.
4. 4. Let ingredients come to room temperature. It can be especially important for wet ingredients like unsalted butter, eggs, milk, and any other refrigerated ingredients in the cake recipe to come up to room temperature. Ingredients at room temperature will mix more readily.
5. 5. Measure ingredients first. Prepare your workspace by separating the dry ingredients from the wet ingredients, each in their own large bowl. Use a volume measuring cup for liquids, and weigh out the dry ingredients.
6. 6. Allow the cake to cool completely. Before you even think of frosting a cake, you must let it cool completely. Do this on a wire rack, but make sure the cake isn’t sticking to the cooling rack. Alternatively, once the cake has cooled to room temperature, wrap it in plastic wrap and stick it in the refrigerator until it’s cold. Wedding cake bakers do this, since they make so many cakes ahead of time.

Certain homemade cake recipes call for special ingredients like cake flour or buttermilk. If you don’t have those on hand, here are a few hacks for making specialty ingredients with things already in your refrigerator or pantry:

• Baking powder: Baking powder is a leavening agent that gives rise to a cake, but if it’s not available, there is a way to fake it. For each teaspoon of baking powder a cake recipe calls for, combine a quarter teaspoon of baking soda, one-half teaspoon of cream of tartar, and one-quarter teaspoon of cornstarch.
• Baking soda: Baking soda is another leavening agent, albeit one that creates a different chemical reaction inside the cake. To make a substitute, simply use two teaspoons of baking powder.
• Buttermilk: While nothing is an exact replacement for buttermilk, there are two tricks that can work in a pinch. The first is to measure out one cup of whole milk and add one tablespoon of a culinary acid (lemon juice or vinegar will work). The second is to combine a half-cup of Greek yogurt or sour cream with a half-cup of whole milk. Use these ratios for each cup of buttermilk called for in a recipe.
• Cake flour: To make a cake flour mixture, measure one leveled cup of all-purpose flour and remove two tablespoons of the flour. Replace those two tablespoons with two tablespoons of cornstarch. Whisk to combine everything thoroughly. Use this ratio for each cup of cake flour called for in the recipe.

Keep in mind that you can replace ingredients like large eggs, vanilla extract (not vanilla flavor), and white sugar with other ingredients, but it changes the flavor of the cake as well as the texture and density level.

There are numerous different easy cake recipes for vanilla cake, yellow cake, white cake, and other cakes, but there are also plenty of frosting options. Here are some of the most common types of frosting:

1. 1. Buttercream frosting: There’s American buttercream, Swiss meringue buttercream, Italian meringue buttercream, French buttercream, and German buttercream. Flavor this popular frosting with vanilla extract or a high-quality chocolate in an elevated vanilla buttercream, chocolate buttercream, or even peanut butter buttercream.
2. 2. Cream cheese frosting: A classic frosting for red velvet and carrot cakes, cream cheese frosting is essentially an American buttercream (butter, powdered sugar, and milk) that uses mostly cream cheese instead of butter.
3. 3. Ganache frosting: Chocolate ganache starts as an emulsion of equal parts chopped chocolate and warm heavy cream. To turn it into a simple chocolate frosting, let the mixture cool in the refrigerator until it’s firm to the touch and fudge-like, then whip the chocolate ganache with an electric mixer or stand mixer until it becomes light and fluffy.
4. 4. Glaze: A glaze is another way to top a cake; it’s traditionally found in bundt and pound cake recipes. It’s a simple mix of powdered sugar and some kind of liquid, such as milk, lemon juice, apple cider, or water.
5. 5. Whipped cream: Perhaps the simplest frosting recipe, whipped cream consists of only one ingredient: heavy cream. To make a sweet version—called chantilly cream—just add powdered sugar about halfway through the whipping process.

You can follow a cake recipe to the letter, or you can convert almost any cake recipe into cupcakes, birthday cakes, sheet cakes, layer cakes, upside-down cakes, or even cake pops. Here are some popular and easy cake recipes:

1. 1. Almond cake: Flavored with almond extract, almond paste, or almond flour, this cake can work as cupcakes, a layered cake, or a single-layer cake. Bake it until a toothpick comes out clean, and the top is golden brown. Dust the cake with powdered sugar and top it with slivered almonds for presentation and texture. Try this simple almond cake recipe.
2. 2. Applesauce cake: Apples are a fall dessert staple, and applesauce cake is moist and spiced with cinnamon. Make cupcakes, muffins or a single-layer cake with a brown sugar crust. Check out this applesauce cake recipe.
3. 3. Carrot cake: For its fat content, carrot cake relies on vegetable oil as opposed to butter like many other cake recipes. This swap makes the cake super-moist but not in a buttery way. Carrot cake is traditionally covered in cream cheese frosting, although vanilla frosting also works. Check out this moist carrot cake recipe.
4. 4. Chiffon cake: Chiffon cake is moist, fluffy, and baked in the same type of pan as an angel food cake. It has no chemical leavening agents in it but instead uses whipped egg whites. Try this hybrid of foam cake and butter cake with a simple chiffon cake recipe.
5. 5. Classic sponge cake: This fluffy cake has no leavening agents and relies on air whipped into the eggs to give it a light and airy texture. Soaking a sponge cake is a popular way to add flavor and keep the cake moist, since it absorbs liquids well. Check out this classic sponge cake recipe.
6. 6. Flourless chocolate espresso cake: Espresso enhances the chocolate flavor in this flourless chocolate cake. Serve it with ice cream for an extra treat. Check out this fudgy flourless chocolate espresso cake recipe.
7. 7. Gingerbread cake: Often found in cookies, gingerbread is a common flavor during the holiday season. Make it in a bundt pan, loaf pan, round cake pan, or on a sheet pan, and then frost it with a sweet cream cheese frosting. Give this gingerbread cake recipe a try.
8. 8. German chocolate cake: This chocolate cake recipe did not originate in Germany but was instead named for a US baker, Samual German. Fill the layers with coconut and pecans and frost the cake with chocolate frosting. Try this easy homemade German chocolate cake recipe.
9. 9. Icebox cake: While it’s not a traditional cake, an icebox cake is cream-focused and requires no baking, making it a good cake option on hot summer days. Use thin cookies, allow plenty of refrigeration time for the cookies to soften, and try different mix-ins and toppings. Try this classic icebox cake recipe.
10. 10. Lemon poppyseed cake: Lemons and poppy seeds are a classic combination. Lemon juice and zest give this cake its signature lemon flavor, and poppy seeds mixed into the batter speckle the cake with black dots and a bit of crunch. Top it with a glaze of powdered sugar and lemon juice. For a step-by-step guide, try this glazed lemon poppy seed cake.
11. 11. Tres leches cake: Meaning “three milks,” tres leches cake is a sponge cake that you soak in a combination of evaporated milk, condensed milk, and whole milk. Top it with whipped cream and fresh berries for a traditional Latin American dessert. Learn how to make your own tres leches cake.
    

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