Hi Janet! When cakes or quick breads sink after being removed from the oven, the culprit could be a few different factors but they mostly stem from an abundance of liquid remaining in the batter.

For instance, if the hydration of the recipe is altered in anyway by using either too much water/milk/eggs or not enough flour (or even a different type of that absorbs less liquid), then your oven will have a tough time evaporating it all in the prescribed bake time. For this reason, measuring your ingredients by weight instead of by volume would be the most accurate way to proceed. 

The next thing to check would be your oven's temperature. Many home ovens like to claim they are preheated to the desired temperature when they are actually 25 or even 50 degrees off (typically on the lower side). Baking your product at this deficit can result in under baking and your product will not have set up enough to structurally support the rise it has achieved. For this reason, an oven thermometer is a handy purchase to verify that your oven is actually holding its temperature evenly in all areas. In addition to this if you are baking multiple products simultaneously, there will be some degree of insulation occurring so each product might take a little longer to bake through. Aside from the classic toothpick test, it is more reliable to insert a digital instant-read thermometer into your the center of your baked good to determine if the interior is indeed baked through. Most bread recipes would be considered completely baked between 190-200 degrees F whereas pastry application should read between 200-210 degrees F.

The last reason baked goods like to sink in the middle has to do with pan size. If a recipe is calling for a specific pan or vessel size and you have chosen a smaller version of that vessel, then your batter/dough could crest above the rim of the pan initially, but then topple onto itself once it is unsupported by the pan, contributing to a sinking or collapsed look in a product. Double checking you have the correct pan size listed in the recipe is always handy when setting out to bake. 

I hope you found these tips helpful. Happy baking!

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