I am making a 12 inch square cake  wanting it  3inch high as is the tin but when I made it yesterday it only came to  1 inch high  this is definitely not high enough. I used a recipe for Madeira cake for a 12". I would like to know if anyone can tell me why it turned out so thin. I have seen some pictures one of a funky grad cake  found on this Cake Central site the 12" cake on that picture is what I am looking at what size and height i need any help appreciated need  cake done this week

Unfortunately, there is no way anyone can tell you what may have gone wrong that resulted in a 1" high cake--far too many variables.

I suggest you start over and pay very careful  attention to the recipe, ingredients, oven temp, etc.  You may have left something out, had ingredients that were too old, cold or room temperature eggs, any number of things...

thankyou