I tried a new recipe. Linda's Lemonlicious lemon cake. I mixed all the ingredients like said in the recipe. I had 4 cakes in the oven at the same time. A 10", 8", and two 6" cakes. the recipe says to bake for 40- 45 minutes. It took about one hour 30 minutes to bake. and at that time the tops of the cakes were burned. I took them out and they started to shrink down a 3" cake went down to a 2" cake. the sides looked like baggy stockings or elephant leggs. I will post the picture on Disaster cakes. The only thing GREAT about this disaster story was that every one that tasted the cake said it was the best cake they had ever tried. My Daughter wants me to make this cake for her comming birthday. I am scared to try it again. Please help or respond if you have ever tried this recipe or know were I went wrong. Thank you.

Gosh, I don't know...here's a bump.

I have some recipes that shrink more then others, there are some things you can do to cut back on the amount of shrinkage.

What temp. are you baking at? I find that lowering the oven temp slightly on some of my recipes helps (325 works best for me)

Did you maybe over bake the layers? I've found that taking my layers out of the oven when my finger print is still visible on the cake, helps to reduce the shrinkage. Remember the cake will continue to cook after you remove it from the oven, so if you "cook til it's done" it may actually be too long.

Was your oven overcrowded? Maybe there wasn't enough space between the pans for the heat to evenly circulate.....that could be why you had to bake them longer then the recommended time resulting in the tops being overly browned and the layers shrinking once taking out of the oven.

Some scratch cakes are temperamental and it may take a few tries of this recipe before you get it exactly where you want it to be. The flour amount could need adjusting.......do you weigh or measure? All these things could be a factor.

HTH