Carrot Cake disaster

[ARedHeadedStranger]

Hello all, I'm new to this forum and relatively new to baking as well. I was hoping some of you savvy folk might have some advice for me.

At work we have a carrot cake recipe that my boss has made several times in the past with no problems. I have also made it successfully in the past, although it did always take quite a while to bake. Recently, however, it seems that ever single time I make it there are parts in the center that refuse to bake no matter how long I leave it in the oven. It does rise, but is still on the dense side. We make cupcakes from our extra cake batter and those always come out beautifully - from the same batter that refuses to bake as a cake. I can't figure out what I must be doing to cause this problem and it's driving me nuts. Any ideas?

 

[Alix]

Can you post both recipe and method so we can troubleshoot for you please?

 

[bethzaring]

Is this the recipe from "Food for Fifty"?

Have you changed pan sizes?

 

[Timothy]

Hey Red, I'll eat the bad tries! I love carrot cake! Do you put the orange icing on it?

 

[Dawgluver]

Are the shredded carrots distributed well? If there's a big clump of them in the middle of the cake, could be a problem. Maybe too much carrot? Too wet?