suicide chocolate cake, can fluid flex save me?

[PastryChica]

Hello everyone! I am in my second week at a brand new job as Pastry Chef over two upscale restaurants. I am having to produce the previous PC's recipes and one of them is a real pain. It is a chocolate cake. Sounds harmless - BUT the batter is so thin it looks like chocolate milk. This "cake" is not only strangly liquid but it also has instructions to "bake in a 400 pan COVERED with foil for the first FORTY minutes, then remove the foil and cook until done" (which takes about another 40 mnutes if not longer!) all at 325. Keep in mind this is CAKE, chocolate cake NOT cheesecake. This cake - the one time it has turned out "right" when I made it ( "right" according to the boss I am trying to please) has a texture somewhere between cake and bread pudding. It is heavy, dense, wet, puddingish - Odd cake. Very odd cake. Very odd cake that is making me look ike a blundering idiot when all the chef's at these restaurants are used to this !@#% cake being "normal". This cake remains extremely liquid and sloshy for atleast an hour and 20 minutes of it's LONG cook time and falls if you even think about looking at it wrong. the recipe has

whisked:
4 c.buttermilk
3 c. oil
8 eggs
2 T. van.


sifted and then whisked into above mixture
8 cups sugar
8 cups flour
2 T.Baking soda
2 t. salt
1/4 c. cinnamon

whisked together and added to above
2 c. cocoa powder
4 c. hot water

I am thinking of replacing the oil with fluid flex in hopes that it can help support the high ratio of liquifiers in this batter. Thoughts? HELP! Help please.

[Harpua]

Yes, we used Flu Flex for our sponges, never oil. The batter was very liquidy like you are describing, but created a delicious cake with a perfect crumb. We baked them at 350 for about 30-40 minutes.

I wish I still had the recipe, because we used it for everything! Very versatile and easy to work with.

That recipe is similar except we use plain milk, flu flex, and we also mix the sugar with the fat/milk/egg mixture. Also, we add the cocoa with the dry. Other than that, it looks almost identical. I would say cook it at a higher temperature? or get rid of some of that water and replace the rest with milk. It should come out light.