The Fatal Flaw - Who Can Solve The Mystery??? Piece Of Cake

The Fatal Flaw - who can solve the mystery???

borinda 16 years ago

Here's my mystery for all of the great bakers. Our family made this recipe for years. Everytime we made it for guests they asked for and went home with the recipe. It was light, rose high, had great texture and flavor, froze well, and was not a remotely fussy batter at all. Divine.
Then we all started comparing notes... the cake was falling. None of us could bake it successfully anymore. There is only one ingredient that is manufactured so back then I wrote to the maker of Presto flour and they assured me there'd been no change in the formulation.
If anyone can find the fatal flaw ands remedy it the reward will be a really superb cake!

Sour Cream Cake:
1/4 lb sweet butter, room temp
1 1/2 cup sugar
3 eggs, room temp
2 1/4 cup sifted Presto flour
1 cup + 1 Tbsp sour cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
34 cup chocolate chips or bits

Preheat oven to 325
Grease and flour a 9" or 10" tube pan
Cream butter and sugar
Add eggs 1 at a time, beat after each
Alternately add the flour and sour cream
Mix in the vanilla
Pour 1/2 the batter into the prepared pan and top with 1/2 of the chips. Top with the remaining batter and then the rest of the chips.
Bake for 1 hour.

Good luck and keep me posted,
Borinda

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jo_jo_ba 16 years ago said:

Might be the fact that you're greasing the sides of the tube pan... the batter has nothing to grab onto so it falls, like an angel food cake would.

Just a thought, let me know how it goes!

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borinda 16 years ago said:

Thanks but that's definitely not the problem. The directions specifically say to grease the pan and we always did back when the recipe worked.

I appreciate the thought, though.

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vindee 16 years ago said:

Maybe you need to add a rising agent like baking powder/baking soda.
Did go online to check the recipes on the presto flour website, and found that even their sour cream coffee cake had baking soda in addition to self-raising flour. They added the soda to the sour cream. Maybe that's the problem???
http://www.prestoflour.com/Portals/TheArtOfBaking/portal.aspx?tabid=14&rid=484
Fingers crossed...take a look at the site.
Best of Luck!!!

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pointsevenout 16 years ago said:

If everybody is using the same presto flour and the company has truly not changed the formula, then I suspect that the rising agents used in their gross shipment of flour is out of date. It's hard to imagine but a company can put out a bad batch of product.
The rising agents have a shelf life. Look on the containers of baking soda and cream of tartar and baking powder. Try using another self-rising flour or even a regular flour and add the appropriate amount of leaveners.

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angel 16 years ago said:

I HAVE A BOOK THAT TELLS ME THAT IF I HAVEN'T GOT SOUR CREAM, USE VINEGAR AND SODA, SO IT KIND OFF MAKES SENSE WHAT VINDEE SAID. TRY ADDING JUST A BIT AND SEE HOW IT GO'S. WOULD LOVE TO KNOW IF IT WORKED.

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wholelottarosie62 14 years ago said:

I am only days new to this website. I am going to try and make this cake within the next 2 weeks. I sounds very much like a Sour Cream Pound that I make as far as ingredients, except that I use about twice the amount of all the ingredients except for the flour and sour cream, and no one has ever complained about it. But, I put 1/4 teaspoon soda with my flour when I sift it. No choclate chips in mine, but also add 1 t. almond extract with 1 t. vanilla, and I increase the flour to 3 C's. The tube pan definately needs to be greased and floured. After I make it your way I'll comment back. Lisa

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