I am having this problem with my cakes. No matter if it is round/rectangle, use baking strips or not, different temps on the oven. It is fine - beautiful - when it comes out of the oven. In 5 minutes, it results in the pictures.

In this picture, the top of the cake is 11.5/7.5 inches across and the bottom is 12.5/8.5 across. The sides of the cake graduate down 1 inch from top to bottom. What is the culprit?? I love, love, love the taste of this cake.


My recipe:
1 cake mix
1 instant pudding (4 serving size)
4 eggs
1/3 cup melted butter
1/2 cup milk
1 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla

Bake at 325

The taste is phenomenonal.

I thought I was adding pictures, but they are not there. The attachment posting control panel - browse, add attachment should make it, but they are not coming in. One is 30 kb, one is 33 kb. So they should not be too large.

you cant attatch photos to posts just no, upload them to your pictures on this site instead - although i believe that is a bit hit and miss just now too.
xx

Are you overbaking? Also try NOT greasing the sides of the pan (you can release with a knife later) so the cake batter can cling to them.

No - not overbaking. For this cake, I only brushed my pan goop on the bottom of the pan - thinking that maybe it was the goop on the side causing it. grrrr

What pans are you using?
Odd that it's a change that happens after they are out for a while!
xx

I just made that exact recipe this weekend with a strawberry mix and with a golden vanilla mix.

Both of my cakes rose ok, but came out dense like banana bread and fell below the rim of the pan. They were awful!

I thought I had the chemistry wrong...adding sour cream and oil (butter) and pudding and an extra egg. All of those things seemed to weigh it down too much.

Is the crumb of yours okay? It's just the way it's rising in the pans?

The crumb is fine.

When it comes out of the oven, it looks like something Martha Stewart would pull out of the oven and then in five minutes it has shriveled. Like when you huddle into yourself to stay warm when you step out into the cold. It just draws in.

If it did not do so well otherwise, I would definitely just toss that recipe. Right now, I just trim away the excess to make perfect sides.

It's too bad you can't upload the picture, a picture would be helpful.

Some cake pans are wider at the top than the bottom. I could never figure out why my 8" cakes looked so sloppy until I measured my pans and they were 8" at the bottom and 9.5" at the top.

If you're sure the sides of your pans are straight, then maybe it's the weight of the cake compressing itself.

pans are Magic Line straight side pans

Sounds like you need to add more liquid to your recipe due to the pudding in the recipe. Try add 1/4 cup more liquid and see if that helps

Last time it messed up, I used 2/3 cup milk. This time I dropped it down to 1/2 cup. Maybe I'll go up to 3/4 cup.

I'm wondering if it is maybe in the amount of time it is mixed. I blend for 30 seconds and then beat on medium for 2.5 minutes.

I sift the pudding and cake mix together. I break up the eggs in a separate bowl and pour them in. Add the sour cream, vanilla, milk, and oil. Then mix, pour in pans, and bake. Maybe it's the eggs being broken up separately??

It's just so frustrating that it's beautiful when I pull it out of the oven. Then I turn around and it has shrunk. It also seems to lose an inch in height.

http://www.food.com/recipe/darn-good-chocolate-cake-cake-mix-cake-87205

This is a recipe, for a chocolate cake that I've made many of times that worked great. It is basicly the same, except that it uses a 1/2 cup of oil. Maybe you need to up your butter a little?

Turns out my oven is too cold. I increased the temperature to 350 instead of 325. I checked the the oven with a thermometer on the setting of 350 and my oven registers 340. Just guessing - at 325, my oven was only 315.

Anyway, baked the same cake today at "350" and it came out perfect.

I read in The Cake Bible that a too cold of an oven will make a cake sink.