Why is my cake dense?

mashcsch

Fri, Nov 06 2015, 1:37 pm

Whenever I make this cake it comes out delicious but dense. I will post the recipe and maybe one of you ladies can help me troubleshoot.
Cream together
1 stick margarine
1 cup sugar
Add 2 eggs
Add 2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
Pinch salt.
Put in pan. Spread can of blueberry pie filling on top. Top with crumb mixture.
Bake at 350 for one hour

Amarante

Fri, Nov 06 2015, 4:14 pm

How long do you cream. Creaming is essential to provide a good texture. You are supposed to cream until it changes color to a light lemony color. You don't want to skimp at this stage.

Your baking powder could be old and have lost strength.

The recipe itself with filling might just yield that kind of density. Sounds like it is some kind of blueberry crumb coffee cake? Maybe try a slightly different topping with frozen blueberries?

Benevolence

Sat, Nov 07 2015, 4:15 pm

Mix the flour, sugar and b powder together before adding to the mixer bowl; another thing I though might be causing this is the margarine: try putting half margrine half sunflower seed oil or coconut or even only oil instead
Last - 1/2 lemon or orange juice to activate the baking powder
Nonetheless it looks good - I'd try a piece of this as is Wink

etky

Sat, Nov 07 2015, 4:52 pm

Benevolence wrote:

Baking powder, unlike baking soda, does not need to be activated by an acid. It already contains acid. It needs some liquid, of any sort, and this is provided by the eggs and vanilla.
I make a very similar recipe, with no additional liquid either. The cake is indeed a dense-ish type of cake. Don't forget it needs to support the wet and heavy pie filling. But the crumb is very tender, not tough, so we don't mind that it's dense. If the texture of your cake is a bit dry or tough, make sure you are doing the creaming step properly, as Amarante said. Also, make sure you are measuring the flour correctly and not putting in too much. Often people overdo the flour by compacting it in the measuring cup and then pressing down when smoothing out the top with a knife.