You are baking a cake for company that is coming over later and suddenly the phone rings and it is a friend you have not spoken to in a long time. Completely involved in your conversation you forget about your cake in the oven and fail to here the timer going off. When you do remember the cake is over cooked. Do you have to start over and make a whole new cake? Not necessarily with a few tips you should be able to restore the moisture to your cake and salvage it.
When it comes to baking things need to be done pretty perfectly. Measurements need to be right on, and baking times must be followed and baked goods watched while cooking. If you are not an experienced cake baker you may find that you don’t know exactly when the cake is finished baking. Therefore you may over bake the cake thinking that it is not yet done. This article will not only teach you how to know when your cake is finished baking, but it will also teach you what to do if you accidently over cook it.
Over Cooked Cake
An over cooked cake is a dry cake. Of course you may not know it is over cooked until you go to eat it. There is a way however, to tell if your cake is over cooked. A perfectly cooked cake will pull away from the pan a bit, but an over cooked cake will pull away from the edge of the pan a lot. Plus if you push down on the center of the cake and it doesn’t sink in (undercooked) or it does not bounce back up (perfectly cooked), then it is very likely that your cake is over cooked and will be very dry.
If a cake is totally burnt you can dry cutting off part of the bottom with a sharp knife, but it might be too far gone. If the cake is just over cooked and not burned you can likely save it.
To save an over cooked cake you will need to make some simple syrup.
How to Make Simple Syrup
Simple syrup is simply an equal mixture of sugar and water that is placed in a sauce pan over a medium heat. Stir the sugar and water together until the sugar completely dissolves. Let the mixture cool.
After the syrup has cooled completely it is ready to use on the cake. To moisten your cake pour some of the simple syrup carefully over the top of your over cooked cake, this will add moisture back in. Be very careful not to over do it. Using a spoon and spooning it on may be the best way to insure that it does not get overly soaked. Simple spoon some on the cake in different areas of the cake. Don’t continuously pour syrup in to one spot in the cake.
The cake should drink in the syrup and it should disappear in to the cake. If the syrup no longer goes into the cake then you likely are adding too much. Stop adding syrup immediately. Give the cake some time to absorb the syrup before icing the cake.