My birthday cake turned into a pancake last weekend

I tried to make a layered vanilla cake for my sister's birthday. Used a recipe from a random blog. Didn't realize I swapped baking powder for baking soda. The cake rose like crazy in the oven then collapsed flat. Ended up with a dense, sad pancake. We just threw some icing on it and called it a 'deconstructed cake'. Has anyone else messed up a simple ingredient swap?

3 comments

3 Comments

sean78213d ago

@finleym43 nailed it with the toasting trick, did that with a collapsed lemon loaf once and it saved the whole thing. Baking soda swap is a brutal way to learn patience.

finleym4314d ago

Did you try cutting it up and toasting it? I did the exact same swap mistake once and ended up with this dense disc that was basically a giant shortcake biscuit. We sliced it thin, toasted the pieces in a buttered pan, and stacked them with strawberries and whipped cream. Turned a total fail into a halfway decent dessert that nobody guessed was supposed to be a cake. That baking soda swap is brutal though, it makes everything taste weirdly metallic if you use too much.

ivan_mason10d ago

Three teaspoons of baking powder equals about one teaspoon of baking soda if you're doing the math, @finleym43. That's probably why yours came out extra dense and metallic since you'd need way more powder to get the same rise.