Tips for Baking Soft Eggless Cakes

Cake baking can be a hassle especially if you don’t know how to cook. There are numerous guides available on different varieties of cake and techniques to make them fluffier. The airy the cake, the better it would be. Sponge cakes go well with everything. You can eat it with hot beverages especially tea or make a desert and maybe enjoy it with an ice cream. With sponge cakes, creations are endless. You can create soft, smooth tasting deserts if you know how to bake your cake right.

When it comes to eggless cake, it becomes a little trickier to bake to that proficiency. The reason is simple! Eggs make the batter airy and rise when you are going to bake it. In absence of eggs, you will use other rising agents like baking soda, lemon juice, and even vinegar.

Fruit vinegar are best as it not only act as the rising agent but add that kick to the cake as well. Best choice for using fruit vinegar would be apple cider vinegar, cherry or raspberry. They go well, especially with mix-fruit cakes.

Follow the below tips for baking soft eggless cakes:

1. Mix sugar and butter before adding flour: It is important to note that the more you whisk sugar and butter until smooth consistency the better it will blend. Butter can leave lumps in the flour and over beating the batter makes the cake denser instead of making it spongy. So as a precaution you must beat sugar and butter well. Sugar melts in the process so well with the butter that when you add flour the task becomes simpler.

2. Avoid using melted butter: If you heat the butter and then add sugar and flour it will jeopardize your plan for a fluffier cake. This can work for cakes with eggs but for eggless cake never heat the butter before. Heated butter will tend to cook the flour and that will make it into a glob leaving no room for air. We need air in our cake to make it soft. So avoid melted butter. Use the butter which is kept in the room temperature.

3. Flour should be sieved twice: Once the butter and sugar are all blended well together, now it’s time to add the flour. Make sure the flour is sieved twice. The reason being that it will be finer and easy to mix. This is the time when you will add baking soda as well and whisk it by adding milk slowly. Add this point you can add bananas if you want or use fruit extracts. Vanilla is best otherwise chose sour flavors like butterscotch, black currant or orange. Be daring with the flavors and add your mind to it. You cake your recipe!

4. Key lies with beating the batter: Some chefs are of the view that more you beat the cake the softer will be its consistency. Now, this technique may work with egg cakes but not with eggless at all. This is the reason that before we add flour and ingredients we try to beat sugar and butter as much as we can. Once everything is mixed try to fold the cake while raising your spatula in the air every time. This technique helps air to trap inside the batter. Make sure the ratio of milk and flour is appropriate as the batter should be runny or too thick. The best consistency is when you are able to fold the cake without feeling the strain on your palm. So fold your cake multiple times until you see no lumps and everything seems to blend perfectly.

5. Preheating the oven is a must: Make sure that the oven is preheated. The cake becomes fluffier best in a warm environment and preheated oven helps ensure that.

6. Warm cake tin: When you preheat the oven keep the cake tin inside for few minutes. Warm tin is a trick as the heat from all the sides gets traveled into the cake faster while baking.

7. Water bath: Now the best technique for making a soft eggless cake is the water bath technique. Take a ray to add water up to the half of the cake tin. Place cake tin in the center of the tray. Make sure that the cake tin is filled optimally with the cake batter leaving enough room for it to rise. Once you start the baking water bath ensure regular heat to the cake. This also helps in baking the cake quicken and more airy.

8. The last step: Once the cake is all baked take it out and do let it cool down for long. If you let it sit in the tin, the cake will overcook. So make sure after 5 minutes you shift the cake on a grill for the heat to pass. You will have the best soft, airy and spongy textured cake. Put icing on the top or put a spray of honey or just sprinkle some icing sugar. The cake will taste and look like some chef baked it!

Making a custom cake is not difficult. You just need to keep few tips in mind. The above-mentioned tips are easy to remember. If you follow them, you will make it right in your very first attempt. Sponge cakes have a shelf life for about a week. You can keep it in the fridge if you want and it will be good for about 10 days then. But if you bake a cake that good, it won’t even last a day. It will be eaten as soon as you’ll serve!

Finally, the eggless soft cake mystery has been solved. So next time experiment with new flavors and don’t mess it up with the tips. These tips will go with any type of eggless cake.

The original blog is posted on Medium on September 28, 2018.