I tried a new Red Velvet cake recipe. It is made with a cake mix and has buttermilk, butter, cocoa, sugar, 3 eggs, and a bottle of food color. The recipe is great, the only thing is when it's in the oven it is all the way to the top of pan. When it comes out it shrinks like crazy! Top, bottom, sides you name it. What causes this? The only thing that I stray from the original recipe is I add a cup of sour cream, an extra tsp of cocoa and I melt 3 squares of Bakers German Chocolate. Like I said it is a great cake but I can't figure out why it shinks.

Most of my scratch baked cakes do this also. I think that they are supposed to shrink from the pan a little

I am a scratch baker, so I don't know how the mix usually works- but you've altered the recipe considerably by adding extra wet ingredients in the form of sour cream and chocolate. Your cake has not been able to form enough structure to keep it from collapsing. Try adding an extra 1/2 c. flour and take it from there- you may need as much as a cup.

I have noticed something similair. On my cake mixes, I add 1/2 C of sour cream to add moisture. On the chocolate ones, they turn out perfect...but the vanilla, they shrink down. I think it makes the cake too heavy and it can't "hold the fluff." Although they taste wonderful, I don't think the vanilla is worth putting it in because of the effects...I just quit adding SC to the vanilla mix. I think I agree that it is too much moisture...try the flour thing and let us know how it works!

~Aimee

This has happened to me before when the cake was not done all the way thru.

i have only noticed this happening if don't take it out of the pan ten minutes after taking out of the oven.