Dropping Your Cake On The Floor Is The Hack You Never Knew You Needed
Lumpy cake is one of a baker's worst nightmares. A cake full of air bubbles with a rough texture on top is challenging to frost and may not be the consistency you hoped for — but your baking woes are about to be solved forever.
TikTok user Jocelyn Delk Adams' brilliant hack for removing air bubbles from cake will improve your post-baking steps. The hack, featured in one of the creator's most-viewed videos, depicts Adams dropping a just-baked cake on the floor — pan and all. Although this might seem like a surefire way to lose your cake for good, if careful, your cake will stay in the pan but lose all those pesky air bubbles. This will ensure that your cake has that beautifully smooth texture that will make frosting a breeze. If you're baking a layer cake, drop each layer. No matter which layer you put on top, you want all your layers to lose those lumps. So, the next time you bake, drop it like it's hot — the pan, that is — it'll produce a more beautiful cake.
Why this hack works, according to science
When you drop your cake, you're countering a chemical reaction, so thank science for how well this works. It all comes down to how cakes rise — and what can keep them from rising awkwardly.
Baking soda and baking powder are both leaveners, which, when mixed with other ingredients in baked goods, cause them to rise. Those two ingredients react with the others and produce carbon dioxide. During baking, carbon dioxide gets trapped inside the cake, creating all kinds of little air pockets that give the cake height (which isn't the case if you use aluminum-free baking powder). Though these small holes also lend cake its signature airy texture, it's possible to have a few too many, and because the carbon dioxide remains inside the cake, so do all of those bubbles. Dropping your cake creates enough force to give those air bubbles an exit path, so once your cake hits the floor, it'll lose those lingering air pockets. Don't fret; your cake will still be plenty airy.
Another way to reduce air bubbles in your cake
Smacking your cake pan on your kitchen floor can be noisy, but if you want to remove air bubbles from your cake without disrupting your neighbors, you still can. There's another effective method to flatten out your cake — and it won't hurt your eardrums.
Turning down the heat on your oven will prevent too much air from remaining in your cake because the lower temperature will cause the ingredients to react much more slowly. The slower chemical reaction between the ingredients will make your cake less likely to have protruding carbon dioxide bubbles. You may not be directly pushing air out from the bubbles in your cake, but this strategy will ensure that there will be fewer bubbles to begin with. Dropping your cake on the floor is a surprisingly effective way to work against the chemical reactions that create a bubbly cake, but it's not the only hack that will give all of your cake recipes that coveted smooth surface.