How to Make a Cake

Q: <strong>What is the Creaming Method of Mixing vs. the Reverse Creaming Method?</strong>

In today's tutorial, we used the Conventional Creaming method which involves creaming the butter and sugar, adding the eggs, and then alternating between dry & wet ingredients (beginning and ending with the dry ingredients/flour mixture). Most of our recipes use this mixing method and its likely the method that you are most used to. This is thought by some to be a more forgiving technique than the reverse creaming (although I like both). I find that cakes that use this method are often a bit fluffier than cakes that use the reverse creaming method. The Reverse Creaming method (also known as the hi-ratio or two stage mixing method) is used in our recipes from time to time. The ingredients are the same, but are added in a different order. With this method, the dry ingredients and the sugar are mixed first. Then the fats and a portion of the liquids are combined with the dry ingredients, followed by the remaining liquids. The result is a velvety cake with a finer crumb. **The Reverse Creaming method is meant for recipes that have a greater amount of sugar than flour (by weight). A few examples of reverse creaming method recipes are our Chocolate Cake from scratch , Yellow Cake from scratch , and Orange Dreamsicle Cake .

Today, I'm going to show you how to make a cake! If you are new to making or decorating cakes, this video is a great place to start.

Table of Contents

What You Will Learn

In this video, we'll show you how to successfully mix & bake a cake, how to wrap and freeze cake layers, trim cake layers, & settle the cake.

Then, I'll show you how to apply the crumb coat & pipe a simple ruffled buttercream design.

We'll show you key baking and cake decorating tips and tricks that will help you to become a better baker and cake decorator!

You can apply most of these methods to any cake that you are preparing. Have fun experimenting!

Part One: Mix, Bake, Freeze

Part Two: Settle, Crumb Coat, Decorate

Materials: How to Make a Cake

We used this White Almond Sour Cream Cake Recipe (which uses the conventional creaming method)

Buttercream (our classic vanilla buttercream and fluffy vanilla buttercream are both good options)

Cake Pans (Today, we used two 8 inch cake pans)

Digital Scale (optional but helpful)

Wilton 104 piping tip

Cardboard cake circle

Recipe FAQs

The layers are done when they spring back when the center is lightly touched...or the toothpick test comes out clean (or with just a few crumbs.)

After removing the cake layers from the oven, place pans on elevated wire rack for about 10-15 minutes before flipping cake layers onto the foil-wrapped cardboard cake circles. (we wrap the cake boards so that we can re-use them later)

We wrap and freeze cake layers all the time. This will allow you to work well in advance, as wrapped layers stay fresh for up to three months in the freezer!

As an added bonus, when the layers are wrapped while still slightly warm, we find that it makes them even more moist!

To freeze, allow the cake layers to cool down to slightly warm (or room temperature). Then, wrap each layer tightly in plastic wrap followed by aluminum foil. Freeze up to three months.

To thaw, move the layers, still wrapped, to the kitchen counter. Allow to thaw for 30-45 minutes before unwrapping. Thaw to desired amount for decorating. Some decorators prefer to assemble their cakes while the layers are still partially frozen. They are less fragile this way.

We usually do not need to trim our cake layers on top or around the sides. Our scratch cakes rarely bake up with a dome, and we use the same pans for all of our layers.

However, sometimes it is necessary to do a little trimming to make things level. Using a serrated knife, level the domes off of the cake layers if needed. You may find it helpful to slowly rotate the cake layer on a turntable while you hold your knife steady and cut away the excess. (Some decorators use cake levelers for this.)

Also, when the cake layers are filled and stacked, you may see areas on the side of the cake that need a bit more trimming to even things out. Gently trim with a serrated knife as needed.

Place bottom cake layer on cake board, add filling filling or frosting. If you are using a very soft filling like whipped cream, it is a good idea to pipe a frosting dam first.

You can do this by adding buttercream to a disposable piping bag and snipping the tip away. Outline the top of the cake layer (about ¼ inch from the edge). Then add your filling within the dam.

Repeat for your remaining cake layers.

Settling the cake is an optional step but one that we find to be helpful in preventing the bulges of frosting around the sides of the cake that can appear over time. This is especially noticeable when your cake is frosted with a smooth finish (rather than a design with lots of texture or piping).

To settle your cake, wrap the filled, unfrosted tier with plastic wrap & apply a weight to the top. This should add a light, steady pressure over the top of the cake.

The weight could be a smallish book or a cake pan or two. Settle the tier for at least three hours or overnight. If your cake filling is perishable, do the settling step in the refrigerator.

*When I am not going to settle the cake, I will at least gently push down a few times on top of the cake (light, steady pressure). I think of it as "speed settling".

After filling and assembling your cake layers (and settling if you are doing that step), we apply a thin layer of frosting all over the cake. This "catches the crumbs". If you are completely covering the cake with piping (ruffles, rosettes, etc), go ahead with that step right after the crumb coat, so that the piping will easily attach.

However, if you are not covering the cake with piping, we recommend chilling the cake for 15 minutes in the freezer (or longer in the refrigerator) to firm everything up before applying the final coat of frosting.

In today's tutorial, we used the Conventional Creaming method which involves creaming the butter and sugar, adding the eggs, and then alternating between dry & wet ingredients (beginning and ending with the dry ingredients/flour mixture).

Most of our recipes use this mixing method and its likely the method that you are most used to.

This is thought by some to be a more forgiving technique than the reverse creaming (although I like both). I find that cakes that use this method are often a bit fluffier than cakes that use the reverse creaming method.

The Reverse Creaming method (also known as the hi-ratio or two stage mixing method) is used in our recipes from time to time.

The ingredients are the same, but are added in a different order. With this method, the dry ingredients and the sugar are mixed first. Then the fats and a portion of the liquids are combined with the dry ingredients, followed by the remaining liquids.

The result is a velvety cake with a finer crumb. **The Reverse Creaming method is meant for recipes that have a greater amount of sugar than flour (by weight).

A few examples of reverse creaming method recipes are our Chocolate Cake from scratch, Yellow Cake from scratch, and Orange Dreamsicle Cake.

We highly recommend using a digital scale when making our recipes. We include the gram weight for this reason.

For the most accurate results, weigh your ingredients. This is especially helpful when it comes to measuring flour.

If you do not have a digital scale, you can still get a pretty accurate measurement by lightly spooning the flour into a measuring cup, and gently removing the excess with a knife. However, a scale makes the process much faster.

*Just remember to zero out the scale once you've place the bowl onto it.

Thanks for Stopping By!

Thanks so much for stopping by, we hope that you enjoyed the video! Now that you know how to make a cake, we hope you'll have fun experimenting with different recipes, cake designs, and more!

Don't miss our huge collection of hundreds of cake recipes and free cake decorating tutorials! You'll find everything from birthday cake recipes to birthday cake design ideas, baby shower cakes, and more.

We have lots of cake recipes from scratch as well as cake mix recipes!

Some of our most popular cake recipes are White Velvet Cake, Carrot Cake, Lemon Cake, and Strawberry Cake!

27 Comments

queridam says:

November 20, 2015 at 4:39 am

Great video. Thank you. I have a silly question. After filling and settling the cake if you have a bulge, do you cut away the excess frosting and proceed with the crumb coat?

Wanda Higgins says:

November 20, 2015 at 9:06 am

This video is such a nice one to add to your library of techniques. Alady, Carolyn Duvall Lawrence, who has done cake decorating for years, shared a great tip with me. Instead of taking the cake layers out of the pan to wrap, she just leaves them right in the pan and wraps in layers of saran wrap. I have found this to be a real time saver. I don't have to worry about misshapen layers because the pan protects them until they are completely frozen. When they have come out of the freezer, I can just trim the top portion of the cake level with the pan. The only down side to this method, is that you need multiple pans.

MsGF says:

November 20, 2015 at 9:34 am

Very interesting videos. Informative. Being a strictly GF girl for many years this is certainly very different from the way I do things. But I now clearly understand why people struggle with GF Baking. :) Great videos very clear and easy to understand. I'm sure they will help a lot of people. Two thumbs up from the GF Gal. :)

Jeanette Davis says:

November 20, 2015 at 9:58 am

Great tutorial. Thanks for the tips. My last cake turned out like a wet sponge. Now I know why!

Melissa Diamond says:

November 20, 2015 at 11:09 am

Thank you all so much for your comments!!

@Queridam- Yes, if you notice anything that needs to be smoothed or trimmed away after the settling process, you'll want to take care of it before crumb coating and frosting the cake.

June says:

November 20, 2015 at 3:05 pm

Never say you can't teach a old dog new tricks. I've been baking for years, and although most of this is familiar, I learned a couple of handy tips I never knew before. Definitely going to use on my next cake. I should mention my cakes don't dome as I use flower nails in my pans and place my pan on a pizza stone. Seems to distribute the heat preventing the dome. I also saw a tip on letting your batter "rest" in the pan on the counter for up to 20-30 minutes before popping into the oven. Although sceptical, I tried it...and it worked!!
Thanks Melissa for a great video..concise and informative.
?

June says:

November 20, 2015 at 3:30 pm

A question Melissa. Forgot to ask in my last post. I noticed you didn't dowel your cake with either bubble straws or wooden cake dowels. I always dowel my cakes, especially if I'm transporting them.

Melissa Diamond says:

November 20, 2015 at 9:16 pm

Hi June- thanks for your comments! - We should have mentioned that we like to use rose nails too for cakes that are 10" and up to help distribute the heat. Interesting tip to place the pan on a pizza stone & also letting the batter rest. We usually don't have much of a dome with our scratch cakes anyway, but for the doctored mixes, I'll have to give that a try sometime!

Also, for doweling, I only find it necessary to dowel/add straws when working with stacked or double barrel cakes. I do like to chill my cakes until firm though before traveling. Thanks for bringing up the point of transporting -forgot to mention it!! ;0)

June says:

November 20, 2015 at 9:46 pm

99.99% of the time I bake from scratch...and as you say, don't get much doming. Different story for doctored cake mixes. Last couple of cakes I baked, 8" x 3" skipped the rose nails, just used the pizza stone....works a charm. I should say, if I have a cake just for family 2: 8 x 1 1/2" I don't bother to dowel...as you say, only stacked cakes. Don't understand the science of letting the batter rest before baking....but it seems to work...

Samira says:

November 21, 2015 at 2:13 am

Great videos! So helpful to see the whole process. I have a question on the logistics of the oven positioning. When baking two cake pans at the same time, is it necessary to rotate the pans mid way through baking? Also, what is the best placement of the pans and are two cake pans the maximum number of pans you would suggest to bake at once?

BeBe says:

November 21, 2015 at 3:34 pm

Hi Samira, When I am baking two cake pans I don't rotate the pans. I can bake three 8 inch round on the top rack of my oven. With some recipes all three are done at once, but sometimes I need to take out the back two pans and bake the front one a bit longer. I don't rotate those either. The rule of thumb is to have air space between each pan and the pans should not touch the sides of the oven. If you happen to have a convection oven you would be able to bake on both racks.

Ethel Ann Dixon says:

November 22, 2015 at 4:01 pm

Love the video and all the tips. I just have a question about the recipe for the White Almond Sour Cream Cake that was posted with the video. Is there any almond flavoring added to the cake? I didn't see any almond flavoring listed with the recipe.