Last night I doctored a cake and when I took it out of the oven, the centers had caved in. Here is the recipe:

BC vanilla cake mix
1 cup flour
1 cup sugar
1 cup sour cream
1 cup caramel coffee syrup
1/4 cup water
1/3 cup oil
4 eggs
1/2 cup powdered instant vanilla pudding
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
2 squirts of duche de lache ice cream syrup

I baked two 8x2" round cakes in a 325 degree oven, one baked for an hour, the other baked for 1 hour 10 minutes. One other thing that I think might have caused me trouble was before I baked the cake, I had dinner in the oven at 400 degrees. I turned the oven back down to 325 degrees and left the oven alone for 5-10 minutes before putting the cake in.

There's too much sugar in your recipe: sugar, coffee syrup, ice cream syrup and pudding.

(A too low oven temp. would cause a cake to sink - not too high a temp.)

Here's a common cake problem chart w/solutions:

http://www.joyofbaking.com/ButterCakeTroubleshooting.html

HTH

I agree with JanH--too much sugar--and, I'll add, FAT. You have a ton of fat with the sour cream, the oil, and the creamer.

I haven't tried this exact recipe, but I'd cut back on the amount of creamer and possibly eliminate the oil, pudding mix, and ice cream syrup. Then, you might get a cake that rises well, and you'd never know the difference.

HTH
Rae

Thanks. Think the cake will still be ok to eat? I trimmed a little bit off the top and it seemed ok.

It's going to be really dense and a little on the gummy side, IMHO.

What do you mean, CAN YOU EAT IT?

That's what mistakes are for! Dig in!!!!!!

LOL. I'm sure it can still be eaten, but it's for a family gathering and I want the cake to be at its best. I ended up baking another cake, this time a Pillsbury chocolate cake with the cake mix extender. I was a bit disappointed that it didn't rise as high as the BC cake mixes normally does.

I got the idea for the coffee syrups from someone on this board; they use a cartoon horse as their avatar. I guess next time I'll just skip the pudding and ice cream syrups. I just need to figure out if it's still ok to use the coffee syrups, since I already bought a couple of bottles.