3 Measuring Mistakes That Are Ruining Your Cakes

If you ever wonder why your cakes don’t turn out quite like you expected, even when you follow the recipe exactly, it could just be that you’re not measuring correctly.

I’ve talked about this before, but lately, I’ve gotten a few comments on some of my videos that it doesn’t really matter how you measure and I thought it would be good to quickly address that, so we’re gonna talk about 3 Sneaky Mistakes That Are Messing Up Your Ingredient Measurements.

Now, most of what I’m referring to is volume measuring. Like measuring in cups. Weighing ingredients is different, but most US recipes use volume cups, which we’ll talk about weighing later on.

Doing this will pack the flour into the cup. I see this often and although you’d think it wouldn’t make that much of a difference, it really does.

It just packs the flour down into the cup and ultimately adds in more flour, which can cause your cake to be dry.

So, there is a difference between liquid and dry measuring cups. Confession here…I didn’t even realize this for the longest time.

You want to use dry ingredient measuring cups for things like flour and sugar because you can measure more accurately with them.

You can fill them up and then level them off and it’s a much more accurate way than filling a volume measuring cup.

Guessing amounts, or using ‘heaping’ measurements, or just winging it and not measuring at all (and I’m not talking about the vanilla extract…cuz you know you measure that stuff with your heart.)

No, I mean just winging it and not measuring at all and just using like teaspoons out of your silverware drawer and just throwing ingredients into the bowl, or just dunking your measuring cup and going for whatever looks right.

Maybe you’ll come out with an okay cake, but don’t you want to know how good it could actually be if you used the exact measurements?

Baking is a ratio game. There has to be proper fat to liquid to flour to leavening ingredients to sugar and more.

All the ratios have to be in alignment or it could throw the whole thing off. And it doesn’t take much to throw it off either.

Now, I get some flack sometimes about not weighing my ingredients. Yes, that actually is more accurate, but you don’t HAVE to weigh ingredients. You absolutely CAN if that’s how you like to bake, but just know that you can still make a good cake without weighing ingredients. I generally don’t weigh the ingredients, myself.

Honestly, it’s probably easier to weigh, but I know that most people don’t want to bother with that and would rather use volume measurements, especially here in the U.S. because that’s just what we’re used to using.

Basically, that’s why I write and test my recipes out with volume measurements, so it makes it easier on most people. I want everyone to feel comfortable baking a cake from scratch and I think ingredients by weight sometimes scares beginners off from trying.

I want you to feel like you can bake whatever recipes I have out there and that it doesn’t seem too complicated.

Anyway, my point is that it’s your choice to weigh ingredients. You don’t have to do that to get a good cake. You just have to make sure you’re measuring correctly and not just eyeballing it.

The main thing though is that it really does make a difference how you’re measuring, especially if you’re using volume measurements. It’s also not a hard thing to change.

What I mean is that it doesn’t take a lot of effort to try measuring a different way…just don’t scoop and pack in the flour, ok? I promise you’ll get a better cake out of it.