This is my first post here, and I have two cakes due Saturday, one of which is a four-tiered square groom's cake. I am using a chocolate cake recipe with cake flour, buttermilk, dutch cocoa, and so forth. While in the oven, the cakes are beautiful, but when I take them out, they keep pulling in from the sides and shrink! The layers have gone from 2" to less than 1". Is there any advice for dealing with chocolate cakes and if I am doing something wrong? I am most concerned about not having a straight edge to line up.

Thanks!

I don't know the answer, but here's a bump for you! Welcome to CC!

I know that Jan has some great links to troubleshooting. She sent me one a while back. I will look for it and post if I can find it. Maybe in the meantime you will find your answer.

I'm not the most experienced baker but I just made a chocolate cake with buttermilk and it turned out very good. I have made chocolate cakes in the past that did what you described and I think I overcooked them. I don't have an oven thermometer, but lately I've been setting my oven to 25 degrees lower than what is called for. Towards the end of cooking time I check the middle of the cake with a toothpick. AS SOON as the toothpick is clean I take it out. Sometimes it takes less than the time called for and sometimes it takes more.

Here is the link I mentioned before. Good luck!

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

do you have enough baking soda for all the cocoa and buttermilk? Or too much?
What are your baking powder and baking soda in comprison to cocoa and buttermilk?

Not sure on how to help you, maybe you could try cooking a bit slower for longer. It sound as though the sides are cooking too quick, and that may cause them to shrink when they come out of the oven. Thats my guess, I could be wrong. I find a good chocolate cake to work with is, mud cake, they dont seem to shrink, sink or fail me.
Here is the recipe that I use.
http://www.cakecentral.com/cake_recipe-2417-1-Chocolate-mud-cake.html

Good luck.

PS: welcome to CC you will love it.

You can keep your temperature at 350. You need baking soda, about 3/4 tsp should do it. It needs it b/c of the acid from both the cocoa and buttermilk.

I was curious if you had tried the recipe again and gotten better results?

I wanted to say thanks to everyone for your suggestions and warm welcome! jesaltuve, I did try the baking soda and got better results, and I cut it in half to get a denser cake without it shrinking too much. I also tried mixing the batter with the paddle, which seemed to help as well, so at least it wasn't a "caketastrophe" like I was imagining! I will definitely be back on the forum if there are other problems in the future.