Help! I just made a chocolate cake (from kingarthurflour.com). I baked it in a 8 x 3 pan at 325. I cooked it for about 95 mins. I was doing great up till about the last 20 min. I cracked in the middle and it seemed to take forever for the middle to cook. I did not put a pin or core in it because I did not think it was necessary since it was only 8 inch.

What do you think went wrong. It is cooking now, so I do not know what it will look like when cut.

Luckily I was just testing out this recipe to see if it was as good as the Golden Vanilla recipe off the same site. That one cooked in a 10 in. pan at 350 and came out BEAUTIFUL.

Any advice would be greately appreciated.

I'm sorry I do not have any advice. But I feel your pain. I have had cakes not turn out before.

I'm not familiar with working with 3" high pans, but 95 mins. seems a really long time to bake an 8". Sorry, no other advice for ya. try, try again.

Sounds like there was too much batter in the pan........outside over baked inside under done........

I would use a flower nail on anything over 2" tall, otherwise, Like Madge said, the outside will be dry and overbaked and the inside will not set up properly.

Sorry, but think of the lesson you learned and will probably never forget!
Good luck with the flower nail!

3 inch pans do take longer to bake than the 2 inch. I use them all the time. What I do is reduce the temp by 25 degrees and that usually works fine for me. But I have never had one crack on me because of that. I have had them crack sometimes I guess because it is too moist. But I believe that if it is going to crack it will do so whether its 2 or 3 inches. Both the same to me. I'm sorry I could not be of more help.

In addition to baking at 325F, I would recommend using bake-even strips and inverted flower nails.

Wilton recommends that 3" pans be filled 1/2 full, so your 8" pan takes 5 cups of batter.

Here's a link to Wilton cake preparation and servings charts:

http://www.wilton.com/cakes/making-cakes/

HTH