So I had the perfect vanilla cake recipe, emphasis on had.

Couple days ago, it all went in the crapper. The cakes would appear done, tester would come out clean, but as they cooled, they became tougher and had raw spots. I have not done anything differently, at least not consciously. I thought the issue was my oven, so i baked in my other oven; same results.

Any idea what could be causing this travesty, it's sending me into depression. The recipe is as follows:

2 1/4 cups flour

1 cup sugar

3 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/4 cups whole milk, in 1 1/3 measure, fill the rest of the way with oil

4 eggs

1 stick unsalted butter

1 1/2 tbsp vanilla

Looking forward to your opinions

Two things look funny to me.  First of all that's a whole lot of  baking powder - wow.  And the liquid in the milk/oil instructions sound confusing.  Are they saying one and a quarter cups of milk with just a couple tablespoons full of liquid oil.  Where did you get this recipe - off of the internet?  If so - know that a lot of them are incorrect.

Ok, not an expert, but sounds to me like you overmixed.  Try creaming the butter and sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy then when you alternate the flour mixture and milk mixture do it on a lower speed and do not overmix.  Only mix enough to get everything incorporated.

Denise, I did get it off the internet but it worked fine up until a couple days ago. It was really good.

The milk/oil mixture is exactly likethat.

Junkies, the mixing is: mix dry ingredients together, then add milk/oilcombo, butter and essence. Mix for two minutes. Add eggs, mix two minutes.

Could your baking powder be too old?

I thought of that and changed the baking powder. Same result 

Aaahh, strange mix method.  The butter is melted then?  Ok, well, if it worked fine before then it's a mixing or measuring error. I know If you over mix, you will get that result.  Are you weighing your ingredients?

 This seems like it has a high proportion of liquid to dry ingredients which may account for the wet spots.  This is almost the tried and true Betty Crocker Golden Starlight cake recipe which has 3 eggs and 1.5 cups sugar. It is a one bowl cake and it still appears in their current cookbook.  I have seen variations of it here and in other blogs and adding the oil is one of the variations, I've also seen a variation with instant pudding mix added.

Rae-Anne - I don't think I've ever had good success mixing butter into dry ingredients as a secondary step. I've always creamed butter/sugar together then alternated dry/liquids in thirds but that's l. If you're looking for a straightforward vanilla recipe, I might recommend the one that Buddy Valestro shared (I omit the custard cream ) : http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/recipe/vanilla-cake-12859245 

I've used this for a long time and it has a great crumb/texture. The quality of the vanilla makes a big difference in taste as well and I'm very partial to all Watkins flavors. Don't overbeat your batter and make sure eggs/butter/milk are at room temp so it doesn't crown.

Hope that helps,

Frank

Ok, so taking all things into considerations, i´m going to first retry my original recipe with you guys´mixing alterations, and then i´m going to try your recipe Frank68. 

Will report back on my progress, if any. 

Wish me luck.

I return after three tests with great news!

So i tried both solutions; the new recipe offered by Frank68 and changing up the mixing method of the original recipe. They both turned out excellent! 

The cake boss recipe was good, nice texture. I was a bit delinquent in observing the batter temperature and as a result the cakes domed, but they still turned out well.

Now the remastering of the original recipe was a dream. I found it weird that i was mixing it as i was, and had no problems, then it just decided to not work anymore.

But thanks all for the suggestions, i appreciated them immensely. 

Glad it worked out for you Rae-Anne :)