I consider myself to be a good baker. I love the taste of the Hersey's Black Magic Cake. However, every time I make it, it sinks in the center. Any idea what I'm doing wrong? I have checked my oven temp and other than it takes an extra 15 minutes to heat to the proper temperature, it holds the proper temperature once it gets there. I get the same results with an 8" pan as with a sheet cake. Help! I have a cake for Saturday that requires stacking and carving!

I don't know if this will work. But this recipe http://www.hersheys.com/recipes/recipe-details.aspx?id=4754&name=Black-Magic-Cake has way too much liquid.

Make sure you use all purpose (NOT cake) flour and I would increase it to 2 cups.

You could also try premixing the cocoa with the boiling water/coffee. Let cool to room temperature before mixing with rest of batter.

And from what I see online using google, this batter should not be baked too deep.

I have a Southern Living Cookbook and tips in it for a cake that falls is:
Oven not hot enough
Undermixing
Insufficient baking
Opening oven door during baking
Too much levening, liquid or sugar

Hope this helps!

I was having trouble with that recipe sinking in the middle. I found that if I lower my cake just 1 notch the cake comes out great. (I have an electric oven)

I use this recipe all the time and it works. I do bake it for longer than the suggested time.

Those are great suggestions. I am having a similar problem, so thanks for the topic! Did you ever find a solution PreTea?

I am not sure what kind of cake you are making but does it call for oil? I baked 5 separate cakes from pillsbury cake mix one day and they were nice and fluffy until they came out of the oven. Within seconds they were flat. I thought maybe my oven wasnt hot enough and they weren't getting donwe so I checked that. We had a boil water advisory in our town so I tried again with bottled water still fell, I baked the cake longer still fell, finally I went and bought a bottle of crisco oil and the cake was fine. I had used this oil for years and never had a problem but I am 100% positive that the oil is what caused my problem.

what a pity!!!

I don't know if you found a solution to this but from what i have heard, if you use you dutch cocoa you can't use baking soda in the same recipe. Here is a good link to a blog about mixing the 2. If you aren't using dutch cocoa powder, sorry then this doesn't apply.
http://www.thelonebaker.com/journal/2011/8/30/dutch-process-cocoa-powder.html

Sorry just to add a bit more, if you use dutch cocoa powder, baking soda and buttermilk, it all evens out and that works in baking. The Hersey's recipe above calls for all three so that one shouldn't be a problem if using dutch cocoa powder.
But if you are used just the dutch cocoa and baking soda then that is when you have a problem with it.

I had a heap of trouble with one recipe. I had made it many times with success and then one day I couldn't get it to perform (rise nicely), it took me a couple of months to find out what happened. I had started using dutch cocoa powder and once I went back to other cocoa powder, the cake worked perfectly again.