Cooking fails? Chances are one of these 5 things went wrong

Undermixing, possibly during the creaming phase where the butter and sugar are beaten, can cause problems with results.
Stacy Zarin Goldberg for the Washington Post

Baking is a science, we are often told – and I love science. So much so that there was a period in college where I flirted with the idea of ​​going into medicine. (I’m a doctor’s daughter, I couldn’t help it!) Alas, it was short-lived.

But my appreciation for understanding why things work or why they don’t has never gone away. And that’s where my passion for baking comes in.

As thrilled as I am to hear from readers who have successfully made something, I get just as much satisfaction from helping people understand why a recipe failed and how to fix the problem. Failing baking is incredibly frustrating and often confusing.

When someone contacts me about a baking failure, I give them a list of questions and theories. Then we move on to problem solving. In my experience, if something is wrong with your baking, there’s a good chance it’s because of one of these five things.

You didn’t weigh the ingredients

My first question for home bakers is always, “Do you weigh your ingredients?” I think using a scale is the most important thing you can do to set yourself up for success and replicate what the recipe developer intended.

Weight is more accurate than volume. The amount of an ingredient you put in a measuring cup can vary depending on how the ingredient is packaged, how you scooped it, and the cup itself. Even measuring cups with the same advertised volume can hold varying amounts; in the case of flour, this variation can be as much as 20 percent depending on the baker, according to America’s Test Kitchen. In baking, even small variations in flour or sugar, especially when amplified over several cups, can mean the difference between success and failure.

You cooked in a glass mold instead of a metal mold

A few years ago, the Food team hosted a lunch with our Post colleagues where we talked about some of our recent work and opened the discussion to questions. A reporter asked why his brownies were never baked. My answer: Was she using a glass baking dish? Bingo. Since then, I’ve identified this as the reason one reader’s carrot bread was raw in the middle, among other things.

The main thing: the glass heats up slowly. The metal heats up faster. With glass (or ceramic), the slower heat transfer means foods will take longer to cook than metal ones. If you take out a cake, or even a batch of brownies or blondies, when the quick-set edges look cooked, the middle may still be raw. If you wait until the middle is cooked once the heat finally penetrates, it’s likely that the edges will be overcooked. They may also continue to dry out as the pan cools, due to heat retention.

Your oven was not at the right temperature

Successful baked goods rely on precise temperatures. I’ve had cookies spread out rather than set when I was eager to preheat. And anyone who bakes bread knows the importance of heat when it comes to the coveted oven source.

The importance of knowing the actual temperature of your oven – not what it claims to be – is a drum I beat constantly, to the point where regular readers have noticed and told me what a difference it makes. Perseverance works! (“After seeing the suggestion several times in this thread, I finally bought myself an oven thermometer,” wrote a participant in one of our recent weekly live chats.)

Many domestic ovens will not have reached the set temperature by the time the preheat chime sounds. In my case, it usually takes at least another 15 minutes, if not more. Get a standalone thermometer and check what it reads when that alarm sounds. If you regularly find that your oven is operating at a consistent amount above or below what you have indicated on the dial, adjust accordingly or calibrate yourself or with the help of a professional.

Becky Krystal believes that using a scale is the most important thing you can do to set yourself up for success and replicate what the recipe developer intended.
Tom McCorkle for the Washington Post

You didn’t mix enough

A plaintive email arrived in my inbox a week before Christmas. One reader’s beloved ginger cookies went awry — literally, because they spread too much and turned crunchy — days before her son arrived home expecting them. I sent in my standard questions, but things didn’t click until I saw the recipe and the photo of the ruined batch. My theory: The flat, lacy cookies were the result of undermixing, perhaps during the creaming step where the butter and sugar were beaten, but even more likely when the dry ingredients were added . Some of the cookies looked pretty good; others had the telltale appearance of portions of dough scraped from the sides of the bowl with sufficient flour. The reader made a second batch, taking care to make the butter and sugar foamy and above all ensuring that the dry ingredients were well incorporated. Success!

Lesson: Whether you stir by hand or use a stand mixer or hand mixer, be careful to scrape the bowl periodically, between additions and more often if necessary. Butter and sugar tend to stick to the walls. For best results, when recipes call for softened butter, make sure it is not cold and solid or hot and velvety. Cook’s Country says that butter at its sweet point “should yield slightly when pressed” and if you have an instant-read thermometer, aim for the butter to register between 60 and 60 degrees Fahrenheit.

You made a bad substitution

I can’t tell you how many times we’ve heard someone wonder why a recipe failed when they substituted all-purpose flour for almond flour. To be frank, any time you make a substitution in a recipe, you risk problems. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. This means you need to think about your change and determine whether it is a substantial change in ingredient composition and function.

In the case of almond flours and all-purpose flours, they are two fundamentally different ingredients: nuts and wheat. Their ability to absorb moisture, stabilize doughs and expand during cooking is not the same. This is where taking the extra time to understand why ingredients work and what they do is so crucial. If you’re looking to make a substitution and the original recipe doesn’t address it, look for other examples. If you want to do it, someone else probably has. For specific dietary needs, sometimes the best solution is to find a different recipe developed with these parameters in mind.