How do I fix common baking mistakes?

Baking is chemistry with narrow tolerances, so the same symptom nearly always has the same short list of causes. Learning to read the symptom is faster than following recipes more carefully.

What you'll need

• Oven thermometer (optional)
• Digital scales (optional)
• Skewer (optional)

Step by step

1. Domed and cracked on top: the oven is too hot.The outside sets before the middle finishes rising, so it bursts through. Drop the temperature 10-20°C and check with a thermometer.
2. Sunken in the middle: underbaked or the door was opened early.Bake longer and test with a skewer. Do not open the oven in the first three-quarters of the bake.
3. Dry and crumbly: overbaked or too much flour.Weigh your flour rather than scooping it, and start skewer-testing five minutes before the recipe time.
4. Dense and heavy: not enough aeration or over-mixed.Cream butter and sugar for a full three to five minutes, and fold flour in gently rather than beating it.
5. Tough and chewy: gluten developed.Over-mixing after the flour goes in, or too much water in pastry. Stop mixing as soon as the flour disappears.
6. Burnt bottom, pale top: the tin or shelf position is wrong.Move to the middle shelf, avoid dark thin tins, and never bake directly on the oven floor.
7. Spread flat instead of holding shape: butter too soft or dough too warm.Chill biscuit dough for thirty minutes before baking. Soft butter and warm dough spread before the structure sets.
8. Soggy bottom: not enough bottom heat or an unbaked base.Blind bake pastry cases, use a metal tin rather than ceramic, and preheat a baking sheet to put the tin on.

Tips

• Buy an oven thermometer before changing anything else. A large proportion of consistent baking problems is an oven running 15°C out.
• Weigh everything, including liquids. Volume measurement is the largest single source of inconsistency in home baking.
• Keep notes on what you changed. Baking rewards small systematic adjustments and punishes changing three things at once.

Common mistakes

• Changing several variables at once after a failure — You learn nothing about which change mattered, and the next failure is just as mysterious.
• Assuming the recipe is wrong — It is usually the oven, the scales or the mixing. Recipes from reputable sources have been tested; your oven has not.
• Substituting ingredients in baking as if it were cooking — Baking ratios are structural. Swapping fats, flours or sugars changes the chemistry, not just the flavour.

Questions people ask