I am getting soooo frustrated! I have tried to make a doctored french vanilla cake using diamondsmom's recipe: usinig french vanilla coffee creamer for the liquid, adding pudding and adding an extra egg. I also added the oil. The cake looks great as it's baking but it completely sinks when I take it out of the oven. It does spill over when cooking (I hate this! I can never fill the pan the right amount, it's usually too much or too little!) I have tried this twice and am getting very fed up! Please help, it's for an order tomorrow. What am I doing wrong??
Oh and I use Betty Crocker cake mixes - it says it already has a box of pudding in it should I still be adding the other pudding?

Any help would be really appreciated!

Thanks!

Gibson, I usually dont add the pudding to the batter if there is already pudding in the mix...I think that might be some of the problem. Maybe all the ingredients are too heavy for the cake to rise properly & it is causing it to sink.

I fill my pan about 2/3 full...it usually works out perfect this way.

Thanks ge! I did fill the pan 2/3 full and it still over flowed!

I forgot to mention I'm baking it in a 8 x 8 1/2 pan that is 31/2 inches deep. I use a flower nail for a heating core and bake at 325 degrees (convec - don't know if this matters)

I'm really scared to try this again....I've already wasted so much in ingredients.

Any other ways to doctor a french vanilla cake?

Every time that I add the pudding and extra egg, my cake sinks in the middle! I have one cooling right now, and it sunk. Luckily it is for a practice snake cake that I'm making for my own boys. If it's for a customer, I won't doctor it because it sinks. It also rises way over the pan, but I use bake even strips, and luckily, it just rises straight up. BTW, I used DH butter cake today.

I'm gonna try to see if I can help you here....I bake in a convection oven also...you probably want to turn your temp down to 300 ...I find my cakes come out best this way.

When I doctor up a mix, I go by sight so I don't really have a great recipe for you,but I do the DH mix, I use a stick of softened butter instead of oil, replace the water with whole milk, add 1 tsp vanilla & alot of people do the extra egg but I don't & because DH doesn't already have the pudding, I add 1/2 package of coordinating pudding.

I find that if the batter is a little too thick that I have to add a little more milk until I get the consistency that I need.

I've tried lowering the temp, with the extra egg, without the extra egg, never tried half box of pudding. Maybe I'll try that next. I bake in an electric oven.

THANKS ge and jen!

I forgot to add that I also used the bake even strips and it still spilled over...how do I get that off of the strip without ruining it? They are brand new

I will try your recipe ge....

and jen, I'm glad to know it was because of the recipe and not me LOL!!

I use Pillsbury that has pudding added and add the box of pudding as well and have never had a problem with it. When I have sinking issues it's because I haven't left the cake in long enough. Try collaring your pan (how-to article on here). That will help with the overflow issue. Since you are also using a very deep pan it's going to take quite a while to cook,up to 45-50minutes (for an 8 in. cake) are not out of the ordinary for my doctored cakes like you are trying to make. Make sure the cake really springs back in the middle when lightly touched before you take it out. If I'm not sure, it goes back in for about 4 more minutes.

Good luck and HTH!

edited to remove double post!

I'm glad to know that it isn't just me also! I just thought I was a little dumb or something and was doing something wrong!

nope, its not just you guys...its happened to me before also. I have a convection oven at my shop & an electric one at home & it did the same thing....they just kept sinking...and they weren't underdone...so then I figured out that I was putting too much liquid & "stuff" in the mix....once I changed it a bit it comes out perfect every time for me.

Gibson, I hope your next try is successful.

One more question, will the size cake I mentioned earlier (8 x 8 1/2 x 3 1/2) be enough to feed 12? I am so new to this...

I can feed about 15 on my 8 in round (4in tall) chocolate cake. It's rich so you don't need a big slice but they are normal looking slices.

Have you tried the cake mix, with pudding and extra edd with out a problem before? If so it could be the creamer causing the problem. Creamers usually have sugar in it, and that could be causing a problem with the structure of the cake.

Also if you can find it, DH makes a French Vanilla mix that I really like. When I docotor it I just add a box of (french vanilla) pudding and egg to it. I usually use water in the mixes.

Spilling over and going too high is the result of too much liquid. This happens a lot at the cake shop as they tend to mix their stuff by eye. And yes, they sink something wicked after that. A girl who works there graduated with a pastry degree and she was explaining to me why cakes rose and fell like they do.

Just curious, why are you doctoring up the mix? I used to do that as well and tended to get mixed results. Are you going for flavour or texture? I now use only BC French Vanilla, add 2% or whole milk in place of water and add an extra egg, and it comes out perfect every time. I do put some wax paper on the bottom as well and also let the cake cool completely in the pan. The cakes are so moist it's amazing. Everyone who has tried one really, really likes it.

You may want to check out this thread about creamers and how they can cause cakes to sink due to their ingredients:
http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-3419-coffee.html+creamer

Hope this helps you solve some of your problems.