I just made a chocolate cake from Duncan H. and there's a huge dome, and it tore into pieces. I followed instructions on box, what am I doing wrong. Is there anything else I need to do besides box instructions?

Cakes are going to dome. To help prevent it - you can use bake even strips and put a greased flower nail in the center.

Do you mean that the dome cracked while it was baking? That's normal too. I just tort the cake later.

If it tore when you were torting it - was it hot? You have to wait for it to cool.

Yes there is something you can do. Turn your oven down to 325-320 and bake it a little longer to get a flatter dome. You can also play with the mix using extenders or adding a touch more oil then called for which makes a cake more dense and not bake up to high. You can rip an old towl into long strips and wet them and wrap the outside edge of your pan right before baking. Secure then with metal clips(anything else will melt) Homemade baking strips are great and prevent the edges from being done before the middle(which makes the dome).

Turn your cake our of your pan and then right back over(right side up) to cool. Leveling a cold cake works better then hot/warm crumbly cake. Some in here cut when frozen-I can not. LOL

I also think that recipes that use shortening bake flatter. That's just been my experience.