The Oven Door Mistake Everyone Makes That Secretly Sabotages Cakes

You've done all the prep, mixing, pouring, and clean-up, and now that your cake is in the oven, there's nothing left to do but wait. As the heavenly smell of fresh-baked goods wafts through your home, there's nothing more enticing than opening the oven door to have a peek. You may ask yourself a hundred questions, wondering if the food is rising at the right rate or if it's forming into an even shape. The irony is that opening the oven door because you want to know these answers can prevent your cake from baking properly. Opening the oven door while baking is one of the common mistakes that causes sunken-in cakes. This is because the cold air that enters the oven can disrupt the process and affect its ability to cook foods to completion.

Keeping the oven door closed for as much of the baking time as possible is one of the secrets to better baking, and it will result in a much better integrity of your final product. There may be unavoidable moments when you need to rotate the cake or insert a toothpick to test its doneness (which, by the way, is a mistake for testing brownies). If you must open the oven door to check your cake's doneness, do it quickly to prevent the heat from escaping and causing a drastic temperature change. These instances aside, it's best to avoid opening the oven door for any other reason.

The temperature inside an oven can drop by at least 25 degrees Farenheit when the door is opened, and that sudden rush of cold air makes the oven have to work extra hard to make up for the difference in temperature. This can cause the cake to not bake evenly. Specifically, it might cause some parts of it (likely the center) to not bake all the way through, leaving the edges a little too brown.

Cakes and any other kind of baked goods need uninterrupted heat to rise correctly and should be left in the oven with the door closed for over ¾ of the cooking time. Be sure to wait five to 10 minutes in between cracking the oven door again. It's important to let the cake bake uninterrupted for the first half-hour that it's in the oven because it's when the proteins in the mix are coagulating. 

Whether you're baking a light and airy sponge cake or a rich and fudgy chocolate cake, it's better to use the oven light than to open the door. There are visual cues to indicate when your cake is almost done, namely the cake rising and turning golden or darker in color. Once you notice these cues, you can open the door and stick a toothpick in the center. If there's no sticky residue on the toothpick, then congratulations: You've made a bakery-worthy dessert!