One of my biggest dreams as a child was to have a house that always smells like a bakery with all sorts of sweets to spoil myself and my loved ones rotten. It’s funny how I grew into the adult who dreams of quitting sugar. As for now, I am still a devout sweet tooth and there are few things more fulfilling than baking tasty treats from scratch at home, until I encounter a last minute challenge like air bubbles in my batter.
Air bubbles are such a killjoy in baking. They cause too many ugly holes in the batter. Sometimes you can be so unlucky that a big bubble builds up at a specific spot and pops up, causing an ugly crack on your wonderfully, dignified cheesecake. Whether you’re baking something simple yet delightful like chocolate chip cookies, or a fancy old-fashioned cake, you want to get it right without weird holes and pockets.
How do you ensure your cake is blessedly devoid of the hole-y appearance and texture? A good place to start is knowing the causes of air bubbles when baking.
Taking shortcuts in your recipe is one of the top reasons why air bubbles creep up on your batter every time you bake. Don’t cut corners with your ingredients or steps. For instance, you may conveniently substitute the baking flour a recipe calls for with something in your pantry not knowing it can turn out to be the cause of air bubbles in your batter, especially if it has high protein content. Flours with high protein contain high gluten levels. Gluten is a major culprit for holes in cakes. Overmixing the right flour also causes air bubbles in batter when baking. You want to make sure you whisk the batter just enough to avoid incorporating excess air into it. Eggs are another cause for the god-forsaken bubbles. When adding eggs, you must take care to mix lightly. In her book ‘Sift,’ Nicola Lamb advises against whipping eggs at high speed. She maintains that whipping at high speed introduces air quickly and fills up the eggs’ protein network with different bubble sizes that lead to a lack of uniformity in the batter.
Tap Out The Air Bubbles
It’s almost inevitable that you will have a few unwanted bubbles in your batter when baking. The most effective way to fix batter gone awry with bubbles is whacking your filled cake pan. Give it a few good taps on your kitchen counter or working table. Hold up the baking pan or sheet about 8 inches from the counter and drop it to agitate the bubbles. You can spread a tea towel to reduce the noise. If this sounds a little scary to you, run a spatula, knife or any sharp kitchen tool across the batter to allow the air pockets to rise to the surface. For optimal results, follow up with a few gentle taps on the counter.
Another simple solution is to purchase a vibrating table. They have a steep price point but are an indispensable object worth adding to your shtick. Amazon has a high-quality, concrete version with a convenient size that fits any kitchen size. Its vibration effects remove air bubbles from batter effectively and the best thing is you wouldn’t have to lift a finger. After all, at this point, your elbow grease is used up in the mixing process.