Hello, I am hoping someone will be able to help me with a recipe and cake height. I have a really good recipe for vanilla cake but it seems to only fill up to 3 in high once decorated. I bake it in 2 8 inch 2 in depth pans and torte each cake in half giving four layers. I believe the ideal should be 4 inch high cakes? Should I just bake the recipe twice and use one more layer?

I would do exactly that, if I like the recipe.  Or, is it a recipe you can easily divide in half?  If so, you could make 1-1/2 recipes and use three 8" pans.

SandraSmiley's suggestion should work perfectly.

Just curious, does this recipe call for 3/4 cup of butter and 3 eggs?

Vanilla cake recipes are usually variations of the 1-2-3-4 cake, which is 1 cup of butter, 2 cups of sugar, 3 cups of flour, 4 eggs. You'll see varying amounts of sugar & flour, but normally the different variations keep the 1 cup of butter and 4 eggs.  I've often seen people copy someone else's recipe, and try to hide it by reducing it by 3/4, and the dead giveaway is the 3/4 cup of butter & 3 eggs... So the 1-2-3-4 cake becomes 3/4 cup of butter, 1 1/2 cups of sugar, 2 1/4 cups of flour, 3 eggs. If that is what's happened to the recipe you're using, you should be able to easily bump it back up to the original scale.

Besides the information posted already just for information:   I prefer most cakes to be 4" tall :)  It sounds to me like your recipe does not provide enough batter to fill your pans enough.   To get that you need to fill each 2" deep pan at least 1/2 full - I usually fill them almost 2/3rds full  which will result in a finished cake 4" tall.  

The recipe I have is 1 cup butter, 2 cups sugar, 4 eggs, 2 1/2 cups self rising flour, 1 cup milk, and 1 tablespoon vanilla

That amount of batter is not enough for two 8"x2" pans.  There in lies your  problem.   Increase the amount of batter - eight my 1/2ing again the ingredeints or making it twice.

The recipe I have is 1 cup butter, 2 cups sugar, 4 eggs, 2 1/2 cups self rising flour, 1 cup milk, and 1 tablespoon vanilla

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OK, try this:  1-1/2 cups butter, 3 cups sugar, 6 eggs, 3-3/4 self rising flour, 1-1/2 cups milk and 1-1/2 tablespoons vanilla

This recipe is really easy to adjust, so this should work just fine.

Thank you. I will give this a try and let you know how it turns out.