Here's What Happens If You Forget The Baking Powder In Your Cake

Plenty of things can go wrong when it comes to baking. Batters get overworked, doughs underproof, things spill, topple, and fall apart. But there's nothing worse than the panic that hits when something is finally in the oven, baking away, and you suddenly realize that you forgot to add a crucial ingredient like baking powder.

It's not the end of the world, but it can be the end of your cake, especially if it takes you a long time to notice. A cake without any leavening agent will end up flat, dense, and tough — basically the total opposite of the light, fluffy texture you're aiming for. Baking powder is the most commonly used, as it contains both baking soda (an acid) and cream of tartar (a base), which work together to cause the chemical reaction needed to make a cake rise.

Walleska Cianfanelli, Executive Pastry Chef at Wilton Sweet Studio, explains, "When it makes contact with liquid and then heated, baking powder produces carbon dioxide gas and the gas forms bubbles that get trapped in the batter's structure. As the cake bakes, the bubbles expand, causing the cake to rise and become airy. Without baking powder, the batter relies only on mechanical aeration (beating, whisking eggs, creaming butter/sugar), which is not enough to give the same height and softness unless the recipe was designed as a foam cake." In turn, your cake will end up compact.

Baking powder is usually added to the dry ingredients in a recipe for two reasons: To make sure it gets distributed evenly and to avoid the chemical reaction starting prematurely. But if you realize that you forgot it after your batter is mixed, hope is not lost — that doesn't really happen until the cake hits the oven.

Cianfanelli says, "If you forgot baking powder in your recipe, a fix will depend on when you realize this is a 'oh no' moment in baking. If the batter is still in the mixing bowl, or hasn't made it to the oven yet, add the baking powder right away and give the batter a good stir to distribute it evenly." Make sure you stir gently, and sprinkle the powder over the batter rather than dumping it in one clump.

Unfortunately, if the cake has started to bake, you're probably out of luck, but you can give it a new lease of life. Cianfanelli says, "If the batter is already in the oven, it's too late to add the baking powder as the structure of the cake has already started to develop. Finish baking it and try to repurpose it, for example, use it for truffles or making cake pops." An elevated bread pudding is always an option, as is a trifle. If things really go wrong, crush it up into crumbs; your next cake could always use a topping!