Last night I was baking my French Vanilla cake with French Vanilla pudding in an 11 x 2 in pan. Well, it took over an hour to back the stupid thing because the middile wouldn't get done. I even had a flower nail in the middle, installed the proper way, and it still took forever. Finally, I stuck a toothpick in and it came out clean.

After it came out of the oven and cooled, the middle fell. My mother asked me if I was working on a soufle. That gave me a chuckle. One layer of the cake turned out fine, but the other one was terrible. Of course, both tops were almost rock hard. I torted the good layer and the inside of the cake was moist and great.

Well, my mother, God bless her, told me should would recreate my cakes for me while I went to work. Got to love her. She is 10x the baker I will ever be. Well, guess what happened? It fell on her too! I could here her frustration over the phone lines. She said it did not fall as much as mine did, but it did collapse some. Any clue as to why this is happening? Is it falling because of the pudding?

Is this cake from scratch or a box? If it's a mix that already has pudding in it, that may be part of it.

I add pudding to cake mixes that say they have pudding in the mix and I never had that trouble...you might want to check your oven for the correct temp. with a thermometer make sure it is the temp. you think it is....also........try shutting off the oven and open the door when you test the cake and get fudgy kinda wet crumbs...and let it cool off that way, so it's not such an abrupt hot to cold when it's taken out of the oven...some cake mixes are just more delicate than others.

It is a Duncan Hines mix that did not have pudding in the mix.

I agree, it sounds like to me that your oven has some hot spots in it or isn't getting up to the right temp.

Put in a oven theometer and try it in various parts of the oven.

Also, make sure you aren't over crowding your oven and are using the middle rack.

I have also found that cakes with pudding in them fall a lot.