Hello!

I have this chocolate cake recipe and I\\'ve been using since I started baking cakes as I get lots of requests for it and it never seems to fail me...not until last night. I\\'m not sure what happened and where I went wrong. I have substituted the sugar with splenda quite a few times before and it was still good. However, last night, I was very frustrated. The cake didn\\'t rise at all.

Question is, does baking soda and baking powder ever expire? my baking powder is new but the baking soda isn\\'t. The ingredients is as follows:

2 cups of All-purpose flour
1 cup sugar/splenda
1 1/2 tspn baking powder
1 1/2 tspn baking soda
1 tspn salt
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/4 cup dark cocoa powder
1/4 cup chocolate vanilla pudding powder mix
2 eggs
1/2 cup canola oil
1 1/2 cup warm milk
1 1/2 cup warm water
1/2 tbspn vanilla extract


As I live in the mountains, the batter looks thin but it used to be just perfect because of the high altitude effect on cakes.. Now I\\'m quite confused and I don\\'t know what went wrong. I\\'ve tried other chocolate cake recipes and this was the one that worked best for me until lastnight..

yup baking powder and soda expire - more a case of not working than going bad. if you definatly added the right quantities of ingredients, id look to the baking soda.
xx

Thanks for that. I had to do another batch last night as I was very confused as to why it didn\\'t rise. the second one was just as bad as the first. Talk about getting frustrated! Even when I was in bed already I still kept thinking about it.

I guess I have to buy another baking soda then! Thank you

Bought new baking soda and sadly.. it didn't rise again...
is something wrong with my recipe? I don't understand why it wont work this time....

I thought maybe if it had butter it would be the butter was too soft/melted. But since you don't have that I'd question the baking powder...or the warm ingredients?

Would warm ingredients do something with the cake? coz I know I've seen some cake recipe that put hot boiling water in it too. I just bought the baking powder before Christmas 2010. Kinda frustrating.. I'll try other chocolate cake recipe for now as I really need to have this cake perfect as it is for a well-known man here in our town and he really wants the same cake I made for him and his wife before

How warm? I have a couple of recipes that call for the liquid to be 110 degrees, if it is to hot or to cold it won't rise.

That recipe looks to have too many liquids.. only 2 cups of flour but 3 cups of water and milk? With such a small amount of flour, you have less gluten. Gluten paired with the leaveners, i.e. baking powder and soda, makes it rise. Perhaps, less liquid and more flour and/or leavener?