Why Did My Cake Sink in the Middle?
The most common reasons a cake sinks in the middle include the following:
- The pan is too small
- There’s too much liquid
- Opening the oven or moving pans during baking
- Oven temperature is too low, or cake isn’t baked long enough.
If you tested the cake’s doneness with a toothpick and it came out with just a few moist crumbs attached, chances are you baked a moist cake. If your cake is undercooked and raw in the middle, you can still use the edges that are baked through. Use one of these sunken cake fixes to impress everyone with your baking skills.
What to Do If You Have a Sunken Cake
If you tested the cake’s doneness with a toothpick and it came out with just a few moist crumbs attached, chances are you baked a moist cake. If your cake is undercooked and raw in the middle, you can still use the edges that are baked through. Use one of these sunken cake fixes to impress everyone with your baking skills.
Add Extra Frosting
When you're cake sinks in the middle, grab an extra can of frosting to disguise the low spot. Add a bit more frosting or whipped cream and smooth to an even level. You can also fill a pastry bag fitted with a specialized tip to create a unique frosting design for your sunken cake.
Make Cake Pops
If you don’t like the idea of serving a cake with a dip in the middle or wound up with a partially underbaked cake, use the baked portion to make cake pops. Mixing the crumbled cake with frosting and dipping it in chocolate or candy melts will give you an entirely new dessert. If you don’t have any candy sticks, serve them without, and you’ve got cake truffles.
Make a Shake
There are all kinds of fun shake creations these days featuring everything from pumpkin pie to your favorite breakfast cereal. Our Test Kitchen recommends making your favorite milkshake and adding crumbled cake pieces to your blender to create a cake shake.
Add a Filling
Have candy and sprinkles handy? Remove the entire portion of the cake that sunk and make a surprise-inside cake by filling it with candy and then topping it with frosting. Pie fillings or fruit jams would make a tasty addition to a sunken cake. If you made a chocolate cake, try creating our black forest cake topper by adding a bit of cherry pie filling to the sunken cake spot before adding the whipped topping and finishing with more cherries.
