I posted yesterday. I tried this recipe twice yesterday. Both fell and stuck to the pan. Any ideas? Here is the recipe. Greased ahd floured
the pans and baked at 325. Used flower nails. Used 2 10 in. pans.
WHITE BUTTERMILK CAKE

1 c. butter or shortening
3 c. sugar
2 c. buttermilk
4 c. cake flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp. lemon extract
6 egg whites

(If cake flour is not available - sift all-purpose flour - measure 1 cup - lightly - remove 1 tablespoon and add 1 tablespoon cornstarch).
Cream butter, add sugar gradually. Add alternately sifted dry ingredients and buttermilk. Stir in flavorings. Fold in stiffly beaten egg whites. Pour in three 9 inch greased and floured cake pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes or until tests done. Cool before removing from pans.

Wish I could help, maybe it was the day. I made two of a different kind of cake recipe yesterday, and they fell and stuck to the pan too. Weird. I just figured the recipe did not like me. Sorry you had the same experience. Maybe we should both try different recipes.

Could be a number of things. This is one of the reasons I'm a die hard doctored cake mix girl myself . I've made cakes from scratch that turned out wonderful and I've made cakes from scratch that sucked.

The last white cake that I made from scratch turned out horrible. I'm still trying to figure out just where it all went wrong. Hopefully someone can give you the answers that you're looking for.

I'm having problems with my chocolate doctored mix recipe as well. I use the WASC choc variation. They are all falling in the middle, even if I don't touch or move them while baking.

Don't know for sure, but it seems to me that the liquid ratio to dry is off. Seems like way too much liquidy stuff, butter, buttermilk and eggs...

one cup sifted cake flour can be substituted with 3/4 cup (84 grams) sifted bleached all-purpose flour plus 2 tablespoons (15 grams) cornstarch.
this is from the Joy of Baking
or
2 tablespoons cornstarch in measuring cup. Fill with unsifted all-purpose flour. Sift 3 times. 1 cup of this equals 1 cup of sifted cake flour.
So if you are making your own cake flour it seems like your cornstarch ratio is off. Hope that helps.

Try adding the sugar as the last step before pouring into you pans.


Thanks! I'll have to give that a try. I just baked 2 9" rounds and they did fine. But now the two 8" rounds that are in the oven have a huge crater in the middle. Same batch of batter. And the 8" pans are Magic Lines, which usually give me great results. Very frustrating because the middle of teh baked cake is now heavier than the sides.

Several things can make cakes to fall and be heavy.....underbaking, too much liquid, and too much sugar.

Make sure your baking powder is really fresh. I find if mine is even a month or two old, my cakes cave in the middle.

Yeah, my favorite recipe uses 3 cups cake flour to 1 1/4 cup buttermilk. I think the whole thing is too wet. Also, test your oven temp with a thermometer. It sounds to me like your oven may be too low.

i'm wondering if you oven just isn't keeping the heat consistently. My old oven did that, it would be 350 when the cake went in and then if I turned on the light and checked the thermometer it would dip down to between 300 and 325, then 20 min. later it was back up to 350! The cakes would fall, but not always!

What depth pans are you using? 1.5", 2", 3". Are you putting the cakes in the same oven? Are they closely spaced or far apart?

I don't think the ratio is off. But with it being in volume and not weight, who can tell. You said one batch worked fine, one fell, and one cracked. If each time you made a separate batch you could have inadvertently added more or less flour to each batch, making each batch of batter an actual different formula. I weigh everything. And if I use a scratch recipe that has volume measurements, I try to convert it to weight as much as possible. I then right down the weights.

If you have a scale you can test how well you are consistent in measurement by measuring and scooping out a cup of flour several times and putting in on the scale to see how much it weighs. Even if you think you are doing it the same each and every time, you might not be. One flick of the wrist into the cup can put a little more or less in and throw off the weight.

Also egg whites only are a drying ingredient actually. I can't remember which book I just read this in recently. But the author referred to the type of cake where you beat the egg whites and fold them in as one of "those" cakes. Meaning that every time you can get different results.

And that brings me to the last part. It could be in how stiff you beat the egg whites and most importantly how you incorporate it into the batter. It makes a world of difference.

I tried a recipe similar to this just this past weekend. The first batch the cupcakes fell after coming out of the oven. Some of them fell to such a deep concave they could have been hockey pucks. The second batch was light and didn't fall, but they sure were chewy. And it had no taste. If you cut back on the sugar you risk the same thing. Sugar is also a tenderizer. I think my cupcakes were chewy because of the lack of sugar in the recipe. I used Alton Brown's chiffon cupcake recipe and he is know for less sweet cakes.

Sorry if I was too long. There is a lot to cover here.