I only have a few days till the wedding. I've had pregnancy complications, morning sickness, a cold, a sick child and limited time left to finish baking my cakes. Help! I baked a 12" chocolate cake (actually my husband did most of it since I'm technically on bed rest) and it came out gummy with a gummy flavor (almost like there was enough flour). The recipe was one and a halved, the dry ingredients weren't sifted (our sifter broke) and the pan was about 3/4 full. I baked the same cake yesterday and it turned out fine. Not sure what went wrong today. The recipe is ... 

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

3/4 cup cocoa

1 1/2 cup flour 

1 1/4 tsp salt

1/2 c butter

1 1/2 c sugar

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

3 egg yolks/ 1 whole egg 

12 oz sour cream

1/2 c milk

3 T honey

when the recipe was halved I used 1 egg yolk and one whole egg. Maybe that was wrong, but I've tried it before and it seemed to work. It was baked at 325 and the cake tester cake out clean. Any ideas why it would turn out gummy? I'm at a loss and too sick and tired to handle this. :(

Edit: tasted like there WASN'T enough flour

Oh and I forgot to add that the middle sunk shortly before it came out of the oven and pretty much fell apart when it came out of the pan. It may have been too hot but I don't think that explains the gummy flavor. 

was your pan filled too full? a 2" pan can do more than half filled with batter but a 3" pan does best with half full -- if yours was 3/4 full that could cause it to fall -- did he stretch out the eggs enough? maybe those egg yolks weren't worked hard enough? did he add the eggs at the proper time?

and last but not least i'm sorry you and your child are not feeling well -- so sweet of your husband to step in and help -- hope you all are feeling better soon

Thank you so much! It is very sweet of him. :) It was a 2" pan and he says he whipped the eggs pretty well. Maybe too well? The center tasted somewhat uncooked but the skewer came out clean so I don't know if it was just under baked. 

i don't know how the instructions read but if the flour was beaten in over two minutes it might make it gummy -- an all purpose flour could work up some gluten, and get bready

I know that in my younger years, when my Mom would give me a baking project, I often mixed up Baking Soda and Baking Powder.  Resulting in gummy, fallen or just plain "off" cakes.  Since your husband made the cake for you, maybe he made this easy mistake.