Cake is Too Dry

By

LisaE2

You might be over baking your cakes. Take the cake out as soon as it starts to pull away from the sides of the pan, take cake out of the oven, and place pan on top of a cooling rack to cool. Or, try adding a half cup or so of plain yogurt or applesauce, some ingredient to add more moisture to the batter. Good luck!

By

dvg

Since you mentioned that you have an older oven, I would place a oven safe thermometer inside the oven and see if it comes to the temperature you selected or does it go higher? I did this with an older oven I had so I could adjust cooking times.

By

KansasCindy

I do have an older oven, so I can't offer a cooking comparison between old and new ovens; and I have never tried this with a cake. Regardless, this hint works wonderfully with many of the quick breads and muffins I make with consistently moist results: I always add an extra egg to the recipe and the resulting treats always come out deliciously moist. It just might work with a cake, too, if you are interested in experimenting. Good luck and happy eating. :-)

By

roopasekhar

If you cannot change your oven, then try keeping an ovenproof dish filled with water, alongside the cake tin, while the cake bakes. Another idea to salvage a dry cake is to poke holes in the cake with a toothpick, and pour in a good amount of syrup, while it is still in the baking dish, and let it sit for a while before turning it out, to make it more moist.

By

MCW

This is a great website that will answer your questions:
http://www.baking911.com/cakes/problems.htm#Shrinks

By

thriftyvicki

Usually a cake is too dry because it is cooked too long. I don't know how old your oven is, but your oven might be heating higher than it shows on the temperature knob (therefore you are cooking them hotter than what you think).

When I make a cake, the directions are to bake for a certain amount of time or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. When I wait until the toothpick comes out totally clean, the cake is very dry.