Hi:

I am making a wedding cake for this weekend. The bottom tier is to be chocolate so I made my usual chocolate cake recipe and doubled it to make (2) 12" round cakes. It ended up really sinking and looking very flat and wet. I even cooked it a little longer and it still looks strange so I'm a bit concerned about using it. Does anyone have a good scratch chocolate cake recipe that can be made in a 12" pan? It will have a cookies and cream filling.

TIA.

Hershey's Black Magic Cake is the best

that seems very similar to the cake I already made, Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate Chocolate Cake. Can this be double easily? And made in a 12" round?

Hershey's P.C.C.Cake is the one and only chocolate cake recipe I use. It is soooo good. I have doubled the recipe many times without any problems. I'm not sure why your first cake didn't behave...did you check the expiration date on the baking powder?

For the Hershey's P.C.C.Cake: You need to bake at least a day in advance because the cake is very soft and fluffy when it's freshly made and it's really hard to ice. Once it sits overnight it gets nice and firm and you can tort it easily. Good luck

and with a pan that size, did you use flower nails or a heating core?

I too had the same problem once and with a cake that big I always use a heating core and it works for me all the time.

My fav is the Devil's food cake in the Mrs. Field's I Love Chocolate cookbook -- it gets raves every time I make it and it is one of my most requested cakes. It is very chocolatey and moist but dense and sturdy enough for stacking (haven't tried carving it yet as I don't really get requests for carved cakes). Since it's a copywrighted recipe, I cannot post it here, but if you PM me your email address, I will type it up and email it out.

I agree with cakesnsweets. I would imagine with a cake that large you would definitely want to use a heating core or a flower nail in the center to disperse the heat evenly throughout the cake.

I do have a chocolate cake recipe for you if you would still like to try a different one. It makes 2 8x2" pans. It calls for 2 Cups(12oz) semi-sweet Chocolate chips, devided, 3/4 cup (1-1/2 cups granulated sugar, 3 eggs, 2 teaspoons vanilla extract, 2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1-1/2 cups water. Preheat oven to 325 (This says 350, but for a pan that size I always reduce heat and add cooking time). Melt 1 Cup of the chocolate chips and butter together either in microwave oven or on top of range over low heat. Stir until chocolate is completely melted. You can also use double-boiler but be careful not to get water in chocolate as it will seize (Clump up) Stir until chocolate is completely melted. Pour into large bowl. Add sugar; beat with electric mixer on low until well blended. beat in eggs, one at a time. Add vanilla. Stir in 1/2 Cup flour, baking soda, and salt; mix well. Add remaining flour and water; mix until smooth. Stir in remaining 1 cup of chocolate chips. Pour into prepared pans. Bake 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean (If you reduced the heat you will have to add on cooking time). Hope that helps.

honestly, i hate the cake on the back of the hershey's can. i LOVE the taste, but i can never get it to bake up right. it always sinks and just looks weird (and wet like you said), even in an 8" pan.

i really like the chocolate variation of WASC which you can find in the recipes on this site.

Thanks for all the responses. I bake this cake all of the time, but normally in an 8" pan. The only other time I tried to make a bigger size (13 x 9), it did the same thing as this time, rose up nicely, then fell to about 1 inch thick and looks wet!! And I did use a flower nail in the middle.