WHY DUSTING?

So very often, we bake that perfect cake, only to find that the choco chips we added have settled at the bottom. This takes all the fun out of eating it. But actually, it is not so difficult to bake a cake with all those luscious choco chips going crunch in every bite.

There are a few tricks that one can use to avoid choco chips, nuts, raisins or berries from settling at the bottom of the pan. The first and most important is to gauge whether the batter is light, like in a chiffon cake. In this case, adding anything would not be advisable.

What you must do is dust the add-ons, and then they won’t sink. There are different techniques to dust them. When you add the ingredients before mixing them, remember to add the nuts, berries or choco chips to the dry ingredients, and then add it all to the wet ingredients. Do so very gently and pour the batter into the pan, setting it quickly to bake in the oven.

Another tip is to coat them with flour first. Sprinkle some flour on them in a plate and mix them so that they are coated with the flour. Once dusted, they can be added to the batter. This keeps them swirling in the batter without them getting weighed down to the bottom.

If you do not want to take a chance with mixing them in the batter, then dust them with flour and once your batter is ready, sprinkle them lightly onto the top of the batter.

If you are adding nuts or choco chips to a heavy batter like a fruit based cake-banana or carrot, then they can be added directly to the batter without dusting, as the density of the batter will keep them from sinking.

Also, when adding nuts or fruits, chop them into small pieces before dusting them with flour.

Do try out all these techniques with different cake batters and make a personal note of which technique works best for each batter.