Crater Cake (aka Birthday Cake)

Last year's birthday cake masterpiece, sadly, went undocumented on Foodphiles, so I want to post something about this year's cake for Lou's birthday even though I have mixed feelings about it.

On the one hand, I loved the way the stenciling turned out. I bought stencils and cut out the lettering in parchment paper (thanks to Heather for the stencilling consult), which I then positioned over the cake (with Lou's help) and dusted with powdered sugar. Cute, huh? I love the way the lettering looks uneven, off-centered and like a stamp.

On the other hand, something went seriously wrong with the cake while baking, and it did not turn out perfectly. The middle of the cake did not bake through fully. When I pulled the cake out of the oven--ten minutes beyond what was called for in the recipe--and released the sides of the pan, the center collapsed. So sad. The cake looked like it had a crater in the middle.

Fortunately, the cake still tasted pretty good. The outer rim was more dry and cake-like, while the center was moist and dense like a chocolate brownie. I made this cake last New Year's Eve, and it turned out very well. I remembered it being moist with a smooth, even surface. The secret ingredient--olive oil--guarantees moisture, but I wonder if it also makes it fickle.

I can think of a few reasons why things went wrong. One, I made the cake in stages, mixing the cocoa, vanilla extract and almond extract several hours before combining the rest of the cake. Maybe the chocolate hardened too much. I carefully warmed up the chocolate before mixing it with the other ingredients, but I fear that combining those ingredients so early screwed things up. Second, I followed a baking tip I read somewhere to place a baking sheet on the floor of the oven to help moderate the heat throughout the oven. Another mistake (note to self: don't experiment with baking technique when you're baking your boyfriend's birthday cake). I wonder if the baking sheet hindered, rather than helped, the even baking of the whole cake by throwing off the temperature in the oven. Lastly, rather than use a 8 and 1/2" springboard pan as called for in the recipe, I used a 9" pan instead. You'd think that the increased area would cause the cake to bake more thoroughly, but I guess not. Thoughts?

By the way, here's the recipe from this Fine Cooking publication.

Despite the imperfection of the baking, we finished off the entire cake in about twenty-four hours.