Why was my cake extremely dry but tasted good. I added milk and eggs. It was a coffee cake from my own scratch recipe. Help please :)

No I wasn't out of vanilla. I just forgot to include it when I posted . I'm sorry. And you'll are awesome thank you for all the help. Ill look into bake wise. :)

Amber, thanks for posting your ingredients. To help you figure this out, I found an article by the great science and baking writer, Shirley Corriher. Basically, you have way too much flour and too many eggs (which are drying) relative to your fat and sugar (which add moisture). Here is the article: http://www.finecooking.com/articles/ratios-for-great-cakes.aspx?pg=0

If your really want to develop your own cake recipes, this article is a good place to start, but I'd also suggest her wonderful book, "Bakewise."

Please tell us--have you made this successfully before and it was just dry this time? Or is this the first time?

Also, curious, were you out of vanilla?

My recipe was
1/2 a cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
5 eggs
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tbsp ground coffee
1tbsp cinnamon
18 oz cake flour
3 tbsp milk
1 tbsp of French vanilla creamer

Any number of factors can contribute to causing a dry cake. Too much flour or even a different brand of flour; not enough liquid, fat or sugar; oven temperature; over-baking; over or under beating. Or maybe it just wasn't a good day to bake. I've had my share of those days!

Third person averring we need to see the recipe before we do more tan guess what happened.

All of the above, plus...Did you remember to add a little salt?

i was going to ask about the addition of fat via oil or butter. in all likelihood, your cake needs some of one or the other, but like petitbleu, i'd be interested in seeing the recipe.

I'd be curious to see your recipe. One guess is that you may have overbaked it. Another is that perhaps you measure your flour in volume and not weight. Is there any oil or butter in your recipe? Did you use whole milk or lowfat or skim?