What an ambitious undertaking, Batsheva! A few of our bakers took a look at the recipe and agreed that there are a few things you might want to consider, including keeping your temp stable at something closer to 350 and re-evaluating the proportion of ingredients -- at first look, the liquid seems high and the fat low. It also looks like you have a lot of acidic ingredients but don't have any baking soda (the leavening looks low in general). While we certainly understand the desire and the motivation to start a recipe from scratch, and we're happy to try to help, recipe development projects generally require a lot of learning and experimenting before getting it right. It may help to compare the ratios of ingredients used in a sampling of similar recipes you enjoy before going back to yours, or consulting expert works on the subject. Rose Levy Berenbaum's Cake Bible can be a great resource as can the ratios provided by Michael Ruhlman on his site and in his books: http://bit.ly/2bgnQEo We hope this helps get you headed in a productive direction! Mollie@KAF

• Reply