Some expert tips to avoid the most common baking disasters, received from Saga Magazine, 2025 09 02

[Colin Howard]

Greetings,

I've performed some baking over the years, usually successfully, but when
not, a masterful failure and no mistake! How about you?

A baker's dozen! 13 expert tips to avoid the biggest baking disasters

Does your pastry have a soggy bottom? Are your cakes more sinker than
show-stopper? Our expert has the baker's dozen of the biggest mistakes and
how to avoid them.
By Monaz Dumasia | Published - 1 Sep 2025

Art can play a part in baking, but ultimately it's a science. Whether it's
bread, biscuits or cake, following the rules will lead to success.
Improvisation, though, can result in failure, food waste and possibly a
bruised ego.

I've worked as a food writer for nearly 20 years. I've developed and tested
hundreds of recipes and people often contact me to ask why a bake went awry.
We'll talk through what they did and inevitably, one of these mistakes will
be the issue.

How to avoid the 13 biggest baking disasters

Here are my baker's dozen of the most common baking mistakes.

1. You're not weighing ingredients accurately or using a measuring spoon

The smallest fluctuations in ingredient amounts can cause a large difference
in the outcome. Use scales which can measure grams and follow your recipe's
amounts precisely.

Make sure you use calibrated measuring spoons and not cutlery ones, which
can vary in volume wildly and be the difference between success and failure.

A measuring teaspoon holds 5ml and a tablespoon holds 15ml.

2. You're not preparing your cake tin appropriately

If you think you can just tip cake batter into a tin and be done with it,
think again. Cake tins need neat lining - usually with non-stick baking
parchment.

Sometimes greasing and flouring can be sufficient, if the recipe calls for
this, but check the method to see what you need to do.

Skip this step and be prepared to scrape your cake out of its tin!

3. You're using the wrong oven temperature

Ovens can be finicky, but one thing to note: if you're using a fan oven, the
overall temperature is hotter, so you need to adjust for this, otherwise you
can end up overcooking your cakes and cookies.

If your recipe only gives a conventional oven temperature, decrease it by 20
degrees -for example, if you are supposed to bake a loaf of bread at 200ºC
in a conventional oven, you'll need to bake it at 180ºC in a fan oven.


4. You're not paying attention to the time

Baking times are crucial. Too short and you risk undercooking (which will
lead to raw mixture in the centre, or a sunken cake). Too long and you risk
overbaking/burning your creation, which will manifest either in at best a
dry/crunchy exterior and at worst a burnt or inedible one.

Most ovens have a timer - make sure you use it and check in when it pings.
If your bake needs longer, pop it back in the oven for a further 10min,
undisturbed. If you think the centre of a cake is still uncooked, but are
worried about the outside burning, simply cover the part with foil before
returning the whole thing to the oven.

5. You don't know how to check if something is cooked or not

Knowing when your bake is ready to come out of the oven is key.

A cake is ready when a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean, with
no wet batter clinging to it (if you can't do this - for whisked sponges,
say - then press the top with a finger and see if it springs back)

Biscuits and pastry are ready when they no longer look like raw dough and
have a dry, sandy feel when you run a finger over them.

A mistake people make is thinking biscuits need to be totally firm when
tested, so end up cooking them until this happens (meaning the end result is
dry and tough). Biscuits remain a little soft until they have cooled and
set, so go by appearance/surface texture instead.

Bread is ready when it is risen, golden and sounds hollow if you lift if off
the tray and tap it on the underside.

6. You keep opening the oven door

It's tempting to want to keep checking in on a cake, but every time you open
the oven door, it drops the temperature inside. This means the cake won't
cook as quickly, as it takes some time for the oven to return to the
temperature it should be. This, in turn, extends the cooking time and can
make it seem like the cake is never going to cook.

The best plan of action is to leave the oven door closed for the allotted
time, then only check on it once elapsed.

7. You're using too much raising agent

More raising agent doesn't necessarily mean a fluffier bake. Too much can
actually have the opposite effect and lead to a cake with a sunken middle
(it can also make things taste salty).

Why? Raising agents depend on chemical reactions where acids and alkalis mix
to create small gas bubbles, which aerate the batter and get set into place
as the mixture cooks. However, adding more than needed can mean this
reaction happens too speedily and not in tandem with the heating process, so
the bubbles appear and then disappear while the batter is still raw.

8. You're taking too long to put the cake in the oven

Delaying putting a sponge in the oven in has a similar sinking effect to
adding too much raising agent - the chemical reactions happen before it gets
cooked.

Once the batter is mixed, get it into the tin then into the oven asap.

9. You're not letting your bread prove/rise for long enough

Bread too dense? You need to allow it to rise sufficiently after shaping.
This gives the yeast (or starter if making sourdough) a chance to create the
carbon dioxide bubbles, leading to a fluffy texture.

10. You're not blind-baking your pastry

No one loves a soggy bottom. Making tarts and pies without cooking the
pastry shell means that the dough is stifled by what's on top of it and
moisture can't evaporate as it heats through. Line the pastry with a sheet
of parchment and plenty of baking beans to support it, then bake until the
sides are set.

Remove the beans and paper and bake for a few more minutes until the pastry
base is dry and baked through.

11. You're over or undermixing

It's essential to know when to stop mixing a cake batter. Generally, it
should be once the final ingredient has been added and the mixture has come
together. Keep folding or whisking and you risk knocking out air or
activating too much gluten and making the mixture tough and rubbery.

It is also possible to undermix and have lumps or streaks of unmixed
ingredients left in the batter. Sieving dry ingredients (especially cocoa
powder or icing sugar) beforehand means mixing a batter is easier as you
aren't having to contend with lumps.

12. You're confusing your raising agents

Baking powder and bicarbonate of soda are different, but easy to
accidentally interchange because American recipes call bicarb "baking soda".

Bicarbonate of soda is a pure alkali and requires the addition of an acidic
ingredient (such as lemon juice) to react with it.

Baking powder is a mixture of bicarb, plus a dried acid such as cream of
tartar and needs to be added to something with moisture to activate it.

Bicarbonate of soda is much more powerful, gram for gram, so using it
instead of baking powder can create disaster.

13. You're getting meringue technique all wrong

Meringues are easy to mess-up as they require a set process which doesn't
take kindly to improvisation.

Firstly, there shouldn't be grease on the equipment or yolk in the egg
white. The next step is to whisk your egg whites slowly for the first minute
or so until you've got a good foam building - blazing in at top speed breaks
the proteins and creates a watery mess.

The next rule is to whisk until the whites hold a stiff peak and no further.
If you start adding sugar too early, you will get a runny meringue. If you
whisk too much, the proteins in the whites break, creating little clumps
which can never be rescued.
Written by: Monaz Dumasia

Monaz Dumasia is a food writer, stylist and recipe developer with years of
experience in the industry.

Colin Howard, Southern England.