Quick question: Does slamming an oven door cause a cake to fall?

ATK’s Feed posed a good question recently, especially timely as we head into baking season: “Does Slamming an Oven Door Cause Cakes to Collapse?” And the answer? In a word, no.  According to them, “The sturdy muffins emerged unharmed, as did the yellow cake. Even the notoriously fragile angel food cake and the soufflé survived the vigorous slamming. Why? A properly developed foam – whether powered by baking soda, baking powder, or beaten egg whites – is pretty resilient. While very rough handling (dropping a half-baked cake, for example) can make it collapse, there’s no need to worry about slamming doors.”

And as thanks for allowing us to use this bit of advice, we’ll give a shout out to their (relatively) new book, The Science of Good Cooking.

And, also, now that the fear of baking has been diminished just a bit, here’s a scrumptious looking 5-star Lemon Meringue Cake from Nigella Lawson.