Who doesn’t love a slice of a freshly baked cake. Everyone loves a homemade cake, due to its light and soft texture and sweet flavor.
However, it can be annoying when your homemade cake is crumbly. A crumbly cake can be the result of a couple of things.
However, if your cake hasn’t turned out how you expected, you shouldn’t give up. There will be a simple reason why it hasn’t come out perfectly. In this article, we will be discovering why your cake is crumbly and how you can fix this problem.
What Is A Crumbly Cake?
We are certain you would know what a crumbly cake looks like. However, we just wanted to be sure that you knew what to be looking out for.
A well-cooked cake should be able to support itself, without the need for any additional support. Even when the cake has been sliced, it should be able to support itself. When a cake is crumbly, it won’t be able to support itself and will instead fall apart when you try to take it out of the tin or slice it.
A lot of bakers will mistake a dry cake for being crumbly, but you can produce a dry cake that isn’t crumbly. If you have produced a dry and crumbly cake, then that is a sign that your recipe wasn’t right. Or something went wrong while the cake was baking.
Why Is Your Cake Moist But Crumbly?
It is not always easy to get the right texture for your cake, as a lot of elements can affect it. Normally, a cake will be crumbly because of a couple of things. This includes:
- Too much flour,
- Overmixed batter,
- Not enough sugar,
- Not enough shortening.
A cake can be moist but crumbly due to the gluten content within the cake. This is all down to how much cake flour you add to your cake batter.
Flour is a really important ingredient when it comes to a cake batter. This is because the gluten in flour helps create the structure within your cake once it is cooked. So, if you add too much gluten or too little, this will affect the structure of your cake.
As a result, it is important that you use the right amount of flour in your cake batter. Otherwise, you could create a dry and crumbly cake.
In addition, you want to make sure that you add enough fat, like butter, to help the cake to stick together. The fat will help you produce a moist cake.
Therefore, if you don’t add enough fat, or flour to your cake batter, your cake’s structure won’t stick together. Which then results in a crumbly and moist cake.
How Do You Fix A Crumbly Cake?
If you are trying out a cake recipe, you may find that the measurements are wrong. Such as too much flour or not enough sugar.
However, if you do happen to produce a crumbly cake, then there is a way to fix it so that you can still enjoy the cake that you have created.
With your crumbly cake, you should decorate it with an icing drizzle and add editable decorations to it. Adding a light buttercream layer, or sour cream, will help the cake stay together.
Although, you may need to use a spoon or fork to eat the cake. These cake decorations will help to add a bit more structure to your cake, so it holds together a bit more.
Another way to fix your crumbly cake is by turning your cake into cake pops. This is a really easy way to still use the cake you have made. There are various cake pop recipes out there, that you can find and use yourself.
Why Is My Cake Crumbling And Falling Apart?
There are a couple of reasons why your cake keeps falling apart. It could be down to the moisture levels within the cake. Whether you have used too much or not enough liquids, in proportions to the cake flour that you have used.
Alongside that, if you bake your cake for too little or too long, then this will affect the texture of your cake. Which would mean you have a crumbly cake that keeps falling apart.
In addition to that, make sure you don’t try to slice your cake while it is still hot. While the cake is cooling, the structure inside is still forming and setting. Thus, cutting a hot cake can create a crumbly cake that falls apart.
How To Make A Cake That Won’t Crumble?
The main thing to do is to make sure you are following a reliable recipe. You want to make sure that you are using the right ratio and measurements of all your ingredients. Also, you want to keep your cake in the oven for the set time. Use a cake tester to see when the cake is done.
It is important that the ratios of all-purpose flour, sugar, and butter are correct. This will then produce a firm cake. Also, you want to use the correct temperature when baking, otherwise, you will produce a dry and crumbly cake.
Conclusion
It can be annoying when you produce a crumbly cake and wondered why is my cake crumbly. However, it is easy to find out why it has happened.
It is typically down to how you have created the cake and the cake batter. This could be due to too much flour or not enough sugar or fat. Thus, always use a cake recipe that you know.
It is quite easy to fix a crumbly cake, by adding a light buttercream layer and cake decorations, or turning your cake into cake pops. We hope you have enjoyed this article, and now understand why is my cake crumbly.
