My cake disaster at the county fair taught me one simple trick

I entered my chocolate cake in the baking contest at the county fair last summer. It came out of the oven perfect, but by judging time, it was a dry, crumbly mess. The head judge, an older woman named Carol, pulled me aside and said, 'You're overmixing. Count your stirs.' She told me to mix the dry ingredients into the wet for exactly 45 seconds, no more. I tried it at home, and my cakes are now consistently moist. Has anyone else had a judge or baker give you a specific number that fixed a common problem?

2 comments

2 Comments

king.aaron20h ago

Count your stirs" sounds like a recipe for stress, not better cake. I've been baking for years and timing every mix would drive me crazy. You can feel when the batter is right by looking at it and knowing the texture. That rigid rule might work for one recipe but fail with another because flour types and humidity change things. Sometimes a little extra mixing is what saves a batter that isn't coming together.

karen_roberts417h ago

Count your stirs" sounds like something a robot would do. I'd get so focused on the number I'd forget to actually bake the cake.