well they havnt met this idiot yet. i tried the WASC cake twice (both with the chocolate variation) First one would not come out of pan. tasted good though second time......didnt cook it was in the oven 20 mins then i checked on it...it was just getting a little too high, almost boiling over. so we left it a little longer and it really boiled over. when we took it out it hadnt cooked at all. what did i do wrong? would being at 4,800 ft have anything to do with it?

I'm not sure what could have happened...maybe your elevation does have something to do with it but I do know that it seems like a lot of people have great luck with this cake and a lot of people have trouble with it, primarily sinking. I've made it a few times now and have had it sink a little on some of them.

Maybe you could try the regular white version and see how that comes out and then you'd know if it has something to do with the chocolate version. It is a wonderful tasting cake!

Maybe you're filling the pans too much? I too, have never used the chocolate version, but I've had great luck with the original WASC. Don't give up, try the white recipe and see if you have better luck. It could be an elevation thing, but I'm not sure

Easy fixes for baking over 3000 ft.:

http://www.swcoloradohome.com/articles/food/020114_b.asp

High altitude baking recipes:

http://www.cahe.nmsu.edu/pubs/_circulars/circ293.pdf

http://ces.uwyo.edu/PUBS/B427.pdf

HTH