Madeira Cake with Cake Pan Conversions

madeira cake, just a little dressed up!

Madeira Cake is easy, basic, buttery-ish, great for decorating, perfect for dunking! One of my favourite plain cakes. I love using Madeira Cakes for celebration cakes because its dense texture makes it easier to handle and it lasts for up to 2 weeks. Not only does it last a long time, its dense texture makes it the perfect cake for decorating with buttercream and fondant (sugar paste).

You’ll find handy hints on baking and cake pan sizes at the end.

You will need and 8″ round cake tin

220g regular salted butter (i.e. not unsalted or slightly salted, just butter!)

250g plain flour

250g sugar

30ml (2tbsp) evaporated milk

4 eggs

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp vanilla paste

butter, sugar and eggs all beat up

1. Preheat oven to 160C (Fan140).

2. Line and grease your cake tin as required.

3. Sift the flour and baking powder.

4. Place the butter and sugar into a deep mixing bowl (tabletop mixer is great) and beat until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes.

5. Add the milk and vanilla and beat to mix thoroughly.

8. Pour the cake batter into the prepared tin. I like to lift the tin and firmly tap the base on a firm surface, to level and pop a few bubbles.

9. Bake for 1 hour. Insert a skewer in the middle of the cake, if it comes out clean, it’s done.

10. Let cool before taking out.

see the dip in the middle? Ready for the oven

Tips

As Madeira cakes have a dome shape when baked, you could try scooping out the middle of the batter and leaving a little hole in the middle before placing in the oven. This does help produce a flatter top but I don’t bother,

To level the cake, you could put a saucer in the cake tin and place the cake on top of it. You could then just slice off the dome using the top of the cake tin as a marker.

The cake will easily last a week if kept in an airtight container, to stop it drying out. This means that if you are decorating it, you can take a couple of days for complicated ideas! Just remember to use a milk free buttercream icing!

For a rainbow look when you slice the cake, just divide the batter up into 2 or 3 portions and colour with food colouring of your choice. My granny used to do this with her butter cakes and we grew up calling them rainbow cakes. I like to do this for girls’ birthday cakes and always get a reaction.

rainbow madeira

Cake Pan Conversions

Starting with the above recipe, multiply by the corresponding quantity for each size.

4″/10cm – divide by 2.5

6″/15cm – divide by 1.5

9″/23cm – x 1 and a quarter

10″/25cm – x 1.5

11″/28cm – x 2

12″/30cm – x 2.5

Converting round to square cake pans - move down 1 inch. For e.g., an 8″ round cake pan equals a 7″ square cake pan.

Round cake tins = Petal tins (i.e., same measurements)

Square cake tins = Hexagonal tins

madeira cake