What happened to my cake??? :(

[MommyPenguin]

How do you get it not to cool quickly?  I took it out of the oven and placed it on top of the oven, still in the pans.  I let it cool in the pans... probably at least half an hour, maybe longer?  Then I put it on cooling racks, and that's when it cracked.

Venus, how do you make jello cake like that?  This one is the kind where you use a white cake mix and then poke it with a fork and pour jello mix all over it, then chill it.  Yours looks so much prettier.  Honestly, I hate this cake.  I don't like jello all that much, and I hate cool whip.  But it's my husband's favorite, so he gets it for his birthday.  And for Christmas, as it was traditional in his family.

[Shoo]

How do you get it not to cool quickly?  I took it out of the oven and placed it on top of the oven, still in the pans.  I let it cool in the pans... probably at least half an hour, maybe longer?  Then I put it on cooling racks, and that's when it cracked.

Venus, how do you make jello cake like that?  This one is the kind where you use a white cake mix and then poke it with a fork and pour jello mix all over it, then chill it.  Yours looks so much prettier.  Honestly, I hate this cake.  I don't like jello all that much, and I hate cool whip.  But it's my husband's favorite, so he gets it for his birthday.  And for Christmas, as it was traditional in his family.

I make this cake for picnics and holidays like the 4th of July and Memorial Day and Labor Day.  It is usually gone in seconds -- everybody LOVES it!  I use white cake and raspberry jello, and Cool Whip.

[Venus193]

Nope.  This uses no cake mix:

http://www.evilkid.com/retrolife/jellocakerecipe.jpg

The trick of this recipe is to mix the five flavors in succession.  As you whip the first flavor you boil the water for the second, etc.  The problem is that you have to stay home all day to do this.

Here's an easier one that also looks cool:



http://www.chefandy.com/recipes/window.html

The best part is that the second one can be done with sugar-free ingredients.  I haven't tried the first one in SF yet.

[katycoo]

Nope.  This uses no cake mix:

http://www.evilkid.com/retrolife/jellocakerecipe.jpg

Have you got the whipping directions?

[apple]

Mommy, what brand of cake mix did you use? 

Betty Crocker recently changed their cake mixes, using a different formula and shrinking the amount of the mix. This could give different results. There's been a lot of discussion about this on some baking boards.

I always use Duncan Hines brand. They seem to give the most consistent results. (When I use a mix. I also bake a lot from scratch.)

[MommyPenguin]

Hmm, yeah, these were Betty Crocker.  The cake mixes were fairly recently bought, too, I believe.  The yellow one definitely was.  How recently did they change their recipe?  Maybe I should switch to Duncan Hines next time, at least for white cake, since that's the one giving me the trouble.

Any changes in brownie recipe?  I have some brownie mix staring at me, tempting me...

[Venus193]

Katycoo, all you have to do is use an electric mixer until the jello is a pale pastel and double in volume.  I only did this once, but it should work unless the formula has been changed.

[magicdomino]

Mommy, what brand of cake mix did you use? 

Betty Crocker recently changed their cake mixes, using a different formula and shrinking the amount of the mix. This could give different results. There's been a lot of discussion about this on some baking boards.

I always use Duncan Hines brand. They seem to give the most consistent results. (When I use a mix. I also bake a lot from scratch.)

Interesting.  My last couple of mix cakes seemed a little thinner than usual.  I thought there was a problem with the baking powder, but maybe there simply wasn't quite as much mix. 

[apple]

The BC cake mixes shrunk from 18.25 oz. to 15.25 oz. The company claims the change is not noticeable, but people who have used the new mixes disagree.

I think it happened last summer. I  noticed threads about it on cooking boards from that point. Here is a thread from the Wilton baking board:

http://www.wilton.com/forums/messageview.cfm?catid=6&threadid=155243

If you Google "Betty Crocker cake mix shrinking" or something similar, you'll find a lot of discussion.

It's is a pet peeve of mine (shrinking cans and packages). Instead of raising prices, manufacturers often shrink the amount of a product. I still have recipes that call for a "16 oz. can of diced tomatoes" (doesn't exist anymore); cans of sweetened condensed milk and canned pumpkin also are smaller.