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No Stupid Questions: CakeThe New York Times’s Cooking contributor, Samantha Seneviratne, joins us in the studio kitchen to answer some frequently asked questions and to share her go-to tips for cake-baking success.

I spelled it wrong. Is that legible? No stupid questions: Cake. Yes, absolutely. You want moist crumbs attached. Ideally, or nothing. Depends on the cake a little bit: If it’s wet, you can see the batter is wet on the thing, so it needs to go longer. I often use a knife and I think it works just fine. I like to use toothpicks and a ruler to mark my spots around, and then an offset serrated to go through. And if your cake is really fragile, can pop it in the freezer for 20 minutes to firm it up a little so that you can get through it. Ooh, that’s a tricky one because sugar does a lot. It helps with structure. It helps with moisture. It helps with tenderness. People add applesauce or any kind of fruit puree or something. You could throw that in there. It’s going to affect the texture though. It’s not going to be as good. Yeah, you can develop too much gluten and that’s going to make for a tough cake. High-altitude baking is complicated. You have to change all the elements basically — the sugar, the leavening, the fats. There are really good charts online to give you a starting point of where to substitute things, but it just takes trial and error for your specific location. If your eggs and butter are not at the optimal temperature, or your liquids that you’re adding, sometimes the batter can split. Your final result may not be as perfect perfect. Once you add the dry ingredients, it should come together and be all right. Racks are a good idea. I remember baking cakes when I was younger thinking like, “Who needs a rack?” That’s dumb, but you do need a rack because you can knock your cake out and you can get air circulation around it. I have thrown my cakes in the fridge to cool them down faster, but I think it affects the texture, so I wouldn’t do it.

The New York Times’s Cooking contributor, Samantha Seneviratne, joins us in the studio kitchen to answer some frequently asked questions and to share her go-to tips for cake-baking success.

By Nyt Cooking

October 22, 2025