Ask Nancy

There are a number of reasons your cake could be cracking during baking. First, and easiest to check, is your oven may be too hot; invest in a good oven thermometer and check it. Other reasons might be overmixing the batter; this incorporates too much air into the batter, which causes the cake to rise too fast then crack. Finally, if you are baking a recipe from scratch (not using a cake mix), the amounts of ingredients might be off – too much shortening, baking powder or sugar can cause cracking as your cake bakes.