It made a crater sink hole the entire time this baked. I'm thinking there's too much sugar? I added the extra (wasc) sugar, there was sugar in the sherbert, sugar in the yogurt and in the orange soda. I also had a slight crust to the cake. In googleing "why"....sugar seems to be the culprit....anyone else have problems? I am not a scratch baker nor understand the science behind behind baking, so I thought I would ask the experts here. What have been your results?

Anyone?

Could be the sugar. In baking you have to think of the sugar as a liquid. As soon as it hits a liquid, it melts and acts the same way. To counter this, you would need to experiment with the recipe by adding flour and possibly baking powder with trial and error. Or, deconstruct all of the ingredients to get the right proportions. Trial and error might be quicker/easier.

The recipe is the modified WASC...adding an extra cup of flour to the mix. I've heard so many raves about this cake, I thought it was already tried and tested...that is my confusion. I also added baking power per the revised recipe. I'm at a loss here.

pm Macsmom - she is the go to person for WASC.

http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=614554&postdays=0&postorder=asc&&start=4980

Page 333 on the Gourmet Thread talks about it but I see recipe #3 doesn't have any liquid listed so it may be an error.

I don't know about WASC, but what kind of pan did you use? Was it a dark pan?
Also, it sounds like you had a wee bit too much sugar and what you describe is what you get when you have too much sugar in the formula.

There is a great photo that you can see in the book How Baking Works. She made three cupcakes with less to more amounts of sugar. The one with 200% sugar sunk in the middle, like a sink hole.

My guess is back off on the sugar. With all the ingredients with added sugar, you would add less sugar than you normally do, if any.

Grandma...my liquid was from the melted shebert, yogurt and orange soda. It didn't seem too thick when in the mixer. It had a normal consistancy. It just had this huge sink hole than never rose.

Linda....I used magic lines pans in my commercial convection oven. Don't think it was the pans, oven or temp.

I'm leaning towards too much sugar. I didn't make this recipe up...I'm using the one I found here...I've never seen any other comments of the problems I had.

Yep, definitely too much sugar then, especially using melted sherbert, yogurt and orange soda. All of them contain sugar, and probably too much sugar overall too. I would back off on one of the ingredients, or try to find some plain yogurt with no sugar added (if you already did then ignore that one). You could try something like half orange soda and half club soda to get the same fizz but less sugar. Or diet soda.

I'm not familiar with the recipe here. I'll go check it later. All brands vary on the amount of sugar. So (and going out on a limb, thinking out loud) you might have used a brand that had more sugar than others have used.

HTH

I think I am going to eliminate the sherbert and use sugar free soda. It will cheaper that way anyway if I continue to make this.

I found this recipe:

http://cakecentral.com/recipes/4643/orange-creamsicle

But I don't see any soda in it. Is this the right one?
I'm thinking with soda, sherbert and yogurt that the recipe might have too much liquid also. With too much liquid the structure of the cake will not hold up and it will collapse also.

ddaigle,

I made this cake about a year ago. Made it three times before I got one I could use. It always sank in the middle and the top was super sticky. I did all the right things....ingredients, baking time and on and on. I posted on CC and got quite a few replies and I read everything on this site that I could find about this cake.

The cake was good, but I never made it again after that as it is just too much work. All of those ingredients - just toooo much for the end results that are not always a winner.

So you are not alone when it comes to this cake.

Well...I wiil try one more time...using sugar free soda and no sherbert.

Linda that is not the one I used, though I did use the filling and it is very good. The one I used is from the link that GrandmaG has in her post. There are different variations. I used Recipe #2.

I iced mine with Bettercream, which I think would be a great icing choice if I ever get the cake right. Unfortunately, this one will not be eaten.

I'm just surprised that I did a search on this cake and read TONS of (positive) posts.

I made it recently with diet soda and sherbet, no yogurt. The three together may have been entirely too much....