I am already behind on baking for a birthday party due to unforseen circumstances.

I tried searching and I can't find a specific answer to my problem.

I use the WASC, bake at 325, am at 4600 feet in elevation, use bake strips, 3" pans, and it is snowing today.

The problem isn't specific to any flavor.

2 days ago I made a WASC and a chocolate WASC. Chocolate was fine but the vanilla sank. It was not snowing then. LOL

Today I am making another chocolate WASC and when I checked it it had risen nicely, but needed some more time. ( I did not touch it, just looked at it) Went to take it out and it has sunk. It looks like a donut!!
Help me please!

opening an oven door too frequently will cause sinking, were you checking on the cake a little too often?

I have the same problem with my vanilla WASC cakes and someone told me to cut the sugar in half and that they add 1 tsp baking powder to the mix. Hope that helps.

MadameRaz- I only opened the door once to check (it had risen nicely) and then when I took it out ( it was sunk).

awatterson- Have you done that with a chocolate one? Will it work as well?

Thanks for the replies.

Good luck with your venture. I had the same problem yesterday and never did find out what the problem was. I had a sheet cake and a 14" round to fall. The yellow turned out fine, but the choc. wasc was horrible. Hope someone can help you.

I haven't tried it yet. My chocolate ones I normally don't have any problems with. It is my vanilla 6" that normally give me heck. I will be trying it the next time I have to make vanilla 6" though. Let me know if you try it. The person who suggested it said that they do it all of the time on all of their WASC cakes.

Well, maybe I will try that since it was the vanilla one that sank the other day. I will let you know what happens. Thank you so much!
This site is a life saver!!

I love this website too! I will cross my fingers for you that it works.

I have the same problem with the chocolate cake, especially if it is in a large pan. Can I ask what size pan you are using? I have had better luck now that I am using flower nails in the middle of the pans to help the baking along too. I noticed that you use the baking strips...I do also and I bake my cakes at 350 combined with the flower nails and so far I've had no problem with them sinking. The one last thing I do now also is that even though I have 3" pans, I only use enough batter to make a single layer. It does take longer as I don't have doubles in a lot of my pans, but at least my cake doesn't sink anymore!

Good luck!

Today I am using an 8" with baking strips. It was a 10" that sunk the other day. I have also had a 6" sink but just a little. I did use more batter because I need a shorter cake for the project I am doing so I was going for the full 3 inches in height rather than the usual 2. This cake sunk twice as much as the one 2 days ago where I was just baking to 2 inches.

Do you use a flower nail in all sizes?

I use a flower nail/s in my 10" or larger. But I decided not to bake the 3" layers anymore. That's where I seemed to run into more problems. This way, I only have to level the cake instead of torting it also. Like I said, it takes me a little longer because I don't have doubles in my larger pans (Christmas is coming though), but to me, it's well worth not having the headache wondering is it going to sink? One last thing too...I always use an oven thermometer. My oven has been out as much as 50 degrees. I thought I was baking at 350 and found out it was only 300! Just something else to consider.

HTH...

I just found that my 2nd 14" round choc. cake has fallen. This time it wasn't the WASC recipe but just a regular box mix and it was a different brand than I used in the WASC yesterday. I used the heating core that came with the pan. Not sure whats going on with the choc. cakes, but this is driving me crazy. Hope someone can come up with a solution pretty soon.

UPDATE: So I adjusted the recipe the way awatterson suggested and went ahead and baked in smaller layers. I just leveled off the extra.
So the cake rose and was actually quite level right out of the oven. I was so happy, no sunken hole. What I noticed though was that it seemed to come out denser than usual, which was fine since I was carving part of it, and was crunchier around the top edge. I tasted the scraps and although it was praised at the party, I thought it was dry.
Very interesting outcome.
I guess I will just keep tweaking it. Thanks for all your help everyone. If you would like to see the finished product it is the ballerina in my pics.

Rose Levy Beranbaum (author of The Cake Bible) suggests adding an extra egg at high altitudes. I live at the same altitude as you and this is what works for me:
1. flower nails, whatever the pan size.
2. oven temp at 350-375 degrees.
3. baking strips.
4. 1 extra egg or egg yoke.
5. 2" cake pans (Magic Line).

Thanks sabre. I have actually had the thought of adding an egg several times, just never did it. I have taken this week off, but have orders for New Year's so I will try your suggestions.