I found a vanilla bean recipe on this site that had good reviews, I made a test batch for cupcakes last weekend and the turned out awesome, everybody loved them!!

I have a two tiered (11 inch on bottom 6 in on top) birthday cake due on Saturday that was a cake I donated for a fundraiser auction. She wants the whole thing to be vanilla so I wanted to use this same awesome recipe. When I went to mix it up I realized that last time I only put in 1 c. of vanilla creamer (I used this instead of milk) instead of the recommended 1 3/4 c.

so even though the cupcakes were perfect I went ahead and added the extra 3/4c. the first cake domed up really high in the oven probably due to overfilling the pan but when it came out it completely sunk in the middle and it wasn't done even though the tester came out clean.

I used the bake even strips but I did forget to put in the heating core, it was a 6 in x 3 in round. The next cake was the 11x2 in round and again I used the bake even strips and remembered the heating core, it looked perfect but when I went to remove it from the pan it was stuck even though I used Wilton cake release, when I finally got it out it was totally soggy on bottom.

Could this have been because it stayed in the baking pan for a few hours because I had to go to work soon after removing it from the oven? Any tips you can give me would be great, I need to get these tiers done! I have company coming and 36 fondant topped cupcakes due on Sat. as well!