"Vince Poroke" > wrote in message
om...
> My cake sunk down in the center and formed a crust on the edge. What
> would cause this to happen? The flavor was wonderful and the cake was
> moist but it just didn't have the consistancy that I was hoping for.
> Here is the recipe.
> I didn't use pastry flour.
>
>
> Cake
> Butter and flour, for spring form pan
> 2 cups pastry flour
> 3/4 cup cocoa powder
> 11/2 teaspoons baking soda
> 1/2 teaspoon salt
> 1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
> 2 cups sugar
> 4 eggs
> 1/2 cup plus 2 ounces buttermilk
> 1/2 cup plus 2 ounces espresso coffee
> 1 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
> Milk Chocolate Ganache, recipe follows

If the formula is well balance and your oven is properly calibrated, the
reason that cakes form an outer crust is that the temperature is too high.
When cakes fall in the middle it is because they are under-baked. You
should get an oven thermometer and verify that your oven is calibrated. You
also need to test for doneness before removing the cake from the oven.

I see a couple of issues with the formula. First, as others have mentioned,
there is more sugar by weight than flour. Unless you are using a "hi ratio"
shortening with emulsifiers, then you should have the same weight or less of
sugar as you do flour. In this case you have 400 grams of sugar and 250
grams of flour. The small amount of cocoa isn't enough to offset the excess
sugar and has no structure forming proteins

The second issue is the leavening. The general rule is that you need 1/4
teaspoon of baking soda for each cup of flour. You also need enough acid
ingredients to react with the soda. It looks like you have too much baking
soda. If it all reacted, that would account, in part, for the collapse.
Too much leavening causes a cake to rise beyond the limits of the structure
and then it collapses.