AHi I'm new to baking and have always loved the taste of scratch cakes but every time I make a scratch cake it comes out overly dense and dry I am not sure if I mix it to much when mixing dry and wet but any suggestions please help????

Could be several things...the way you're measuring the ingredients, your mixing method, your oven temperature could be off, you could be baking it too long, etc. 

Can you post the recipe?

AYes its the Martha Stewart 1234 cake vanilla are you familiar with it?

AWhen a recipe calls for you to mix until just combined is it ok to still see some dry or it has to be all wet?

I haven't looked at the recipe yet, but I can tell you that many of us don't have luck with MS recipes.  I use her red velvet recipe and that's about it.  There have been lots of threads on here about how some of her recipes don't turn out well.

Is this happening with only this recipe or with others you've tried?  I'm going to take a look at it...

Ok I just glanced at the recipe.  The reviews are hit or miss.  Here are my tips:

I always weigh my flour and sugar.  That recipe uses the spoon and level method for measuring, so what they did was spoon it into the measuring cup and then sweep the excess off the top. 

Make sure your ingredients are at room temperature.  Butter shouldn't be too soft or too hard.  It should be bendable if that makes sense.  The recipe says your thumb should leave an imprint and that is accurate.

Calibrate your oven to make sure it's baking at the right temperature.  You might have to adjust up or down depending on how hot it's reading.

When you bake the cake, pull it out when there are still moist crumbs sticking to the toothpick.  If it's pulling away from the sides of the pan it's probably already overdone.  You can use the bake-even strips to protect the outer crust from getting overdone.  That's what I use.  But I will always start checking a cake 5 or 10 minutes before the recipe's time. 

When you add the last bit of flour, do it by hand and use a whisk.  Mix it until it's just blended in.  Some specks of flour are ok but avoid huge streaks of dry.  The more you mix, the more you're going to activate the gluten which will result in a tougher cake.

This is the recipe I found.  Is this the one you used?
 

http://www.marthastewart.com/897987/classic-yellow-cake-batter

ATASTEBOOKJoin Login My Recipes Browse Create a Cookbook Shop Blog Basic 1-2-3-4 Cake Food Network

Share RATE SAVE ADD NOTE EMAIL Servings:Makes 3 Layer Cakes Prep Time: 10 Min Cook Time: 25 Min Total Time: 35 Min INGREDIENTS 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature 2 cups sugar 4 eggs 3 cups sifted self-rising flour 1 cup milk 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract Basic 1-2-3-4 Cake photo POWERED BY Edamam_logo NUTRITION INFORMATION per serving (12 servings) 412.5 kcal Calories 17.9 g Total Fat 10.7 g Saturated Fat 0.6 g Trans 57.7 g Total Carbs 0.8 g Dietary Fiber 34.5 g Sugars 6.0 g Protein See the complete list (+) DIRECTIONS See Full Recipe on food network