Hi - I have a question I'm hoping someone can help me with. I have a recipe for a vanilla cake that I like - but when it bakes I have to cut off the top because it becomes a hard crust. I have read this could be from the sugar and fat in the cake, but I'm not sure how to tweak the recipe to correct that.
It has equal sugar and flour, one cup butter and a 1/2 cup shortening, 5 eggs, and equal parts whole milk and butter milk...
I like it as it's close to my favorite chocolate cake recipe, just slightly denser and the top crusts... any advice would be greatly appreciated. If the specific recipe would help more, just let me know :)
Thanks in advance for your time and help!!
sounds like a pound cake and they often come out that way -- that top is good like a cookie then the cake is soft and dense
i rarely tweak a recipe like that -- i just find a new recipe
It did remind me of that... but the comments of the recipe said the denseness was a result of over mixing the eggs... it's the closest I've found to the chocolate I love and haven't been able to convert into vanilla... was hoping it'd be possible to modify this one to get there :)
why mess with a recipe that you are not happy with -- the flavors will transfer right over to the next recipe -- the formula/texture/density will not -- get a new formula -- the best place to look is in established recipes from published bakers who have run cake businesses -- colette peters, toba garrett, scott clark wooley, lots of them sylvia weinstock, buddy valastro, duff goldman, the pink cake box lady, edna de la cruz -- even betty crocker has great money making cake recipes -- hahahaha -- (inside joke there) but betty crocker does have great cake formulas
also there are tons of recipes that are wonky even ones you find published in cookbooks so there's that too -- seems like you got a wonky one -- i would be suspect of a recipe that has that much fat in it -- but i would never try to fix it --
the pound cake recipe i use (can be found online)
- 3 cups sugar
- 8 ounces butter
- 6 eggs
- 3 cups flour
- 1 cup whipping cream
- vanilla
this ^^^ is a viable pound cake recipe so tailor yours more to this if you want to experiment
and that is how you tweak a recipe -- it's not where you find one recipe and then try to fix it to your liking -- no -- you look up several solid tried & true recipes and combine the ingredients list to see what you like best to coordinate with the ingredients you have on hand or to get the result you want -- you don't go get one and say oh it tastes good but i don't like the rest of it so i'm gonna fix it -- i'm gonna arm wrestle this into my perfect cake ...but... i have to ask on cc how to do this --
ok -- here's the secret -- here's how you do it -- get a good recipe in the first place -- bam
find a good one already and combine with another or add in the parts of the other one that had a few parts you liked -- or just use the good one 
best baking and caking to you
ps if you decide to test -- divide the recipe into halves or thirds or quarters so you can have several different results from one batch
happy baking
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