5 tips to keep in mind while baking a cake in a cooker

Fond of baking cakes but don’t have an oven at home? Worry no more. You need not have all the equipment to make a delicious cake at home. Just use a pressure cooker and make a soft and spongy cake in no time. Be it birthdays, anniversaries, parties or special occasions; now surprise your loved ones by baking a cake without using an oven. While using a pressure cooker to bake a cake, make sure you keep these 5 essential tips in mind. (all image credits-istock)

Pre-heating a cooker is as important as pre-heating an oven. The main objective behind pre-heating is to ensure that the cooker has evenly distributed heat, which will cook the cake from all sides. If you put a cake tin in a cold cooker and then switch on the flame, the heat will take time to build up gradually, which can cause the cake to cook unevenly. The outside of the cake may cook too quickly, while the inside remains raw. You can pre-heat the cooker for about 8-10 minutes.

Another important step that ensures your cake comes out easily and doesn’t stick to the sides or the bottom, make sure you prepare the tin properly. Most people grease the tin and line it with parchment paper, which is quite easy to do. However, if you don’t have parchment paper, you can prepare the tin by using just two ingredients- oil and flour. Take the baking tin and use a silicone brush to spread oil properly on the insides. Now sprinkle some flour in the tin and tap with your hands to ensure that the flour has covered the tin completely from the inside. Remove the excess flour and invert the tin once. Now just pour the batter into the tin and bake the cake.

If your cake always turns out to be hard and doesn’t hold the soft texture, here is a trick to make it spongier. You can add some vinegar to your cake’s batter and whisk it for at least 2-3 minutes to make the batter fluffier. This will reduce the density of the batter and incorporate more air into it.

Usually, a metal stand is used to hold the cake tin and keep it stable. The metal stand is a light-wired stand that is some inches off the ground. This ensures that the tin gets proper heat and is cooked evenly. In case you do not have a metal stand at home, you can use either salt or sand to stabilize the cake tin in the cooker. Pour 2-3 cups of salt or sand in the cooker and lightly tap to level it. Now just carefully place the cake tin in the salt/sand and let the cake cook. Heat is conducted evenly through the salt/sand particles, which will bake the cake properly.

If you are using a pressure cooker, then you need not put the whistle weight on top to create pressure in the cooker. The baking process will happen with the trapped heat and steam generated by the batter, which will slowly release from the opening on the top. Make sure you use a wide-base pressure cooker so that the cake is cooked evenly from all sides.

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