The Bakery-Approved Trick For Fluffier Cake Requires A Pinch Of Patience

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Baking a cake is usually not too difficult, and even if it comes out looking less than perfect, flaws can be hidden under frosting and sprinkles. There are also different ways to improve it before baking, such as adding jam to a chocolate cake or tea to a spice cake or yellow cake. Mimi Council, former bakery owner, cookbook author, and recipe developer at Mimi's Organic Eats, has another tip for better batter: letting it rest in the fridge for a while.

Resting the batter, which allows the leaveners to kick in, air bubbles to settle, and wet ingredients to hydrate the dry ones, is especially effective for one type of cake. As Council told us, " ... doing this trick can actually make your cupcakes fluffier and taller." If you refrigerate the batter before baking, she also noted, " ... cold batter can rise better because it's thicker."  

As it rests, she suggests covering the mixing bowl with plastic wrap, explaining: "If air is getting in, the batter can dry out in spots, which you don't want." Other options include pouring the batter into a resealable airtight container or using one of these Norpro stretchy plastic bowl covers.

Don't let the batter sit out longer than one hour without refrigerating. Among the beneficial aspects of batter resting is that it can kick in in just 10 minutes, but if the resting time lasts more than three hours, the leaveners start to lose some of their power. As such, anything rested overnight may result in a cake that won't rise quite as high as it otherwise would, meaning the cake will turn out denser than it would have if it went straight into the oven. 

But sometimes, resting batter overnight is out of necessity. "This is a great trick for prep ahead so you get fresh-baked cake the day of an event," said Mimi Council, adding that her bakery did this daily because "it's a great time saver."  

Since certain ingredients don't lend themselves well to resting, Council cautioned, "I wouldn't recommend this for cake batters made with folded-in egg whites, as those can begin to deflate as time goes on. So, I would use this trick for classic yellow or chocolate cakes that use full eggs." The technique is also best for cakes made with double-acting baking powder. If you're using single-acting baking powder such as the German Dr. Oetker brand, the cake needs to go into the oven straight away since this type of leavener acts quickly. Baking soda, too, will start to work straight away, but if you put the batter in the refrigerator, it will slow things down sufficiently that you can leave it there for a few hours without risking a too-flat cake.