"Vox Humana" > wrote in message >.. .
> "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.


Thank you very much for the scientific approach to answering this. I
pulled this recipe off of Foodnetwork.com. I would have thought that
they would know what they are doing.