Madeira Cake disaster - help!!

honey28

I posted this over on the Christmas thread but thought it might be better over here.

I have just baked my madeira cake for Christmas using 8oz flour, 6 of sugar, butter and flour and lemon rind. The recipe said to use plain flour and add 1 tsp baking powder. It looks and smells lovely but it has only risen by about an inch at the sides and about 2-3 in the middle (it is a round cake). I had planned to decorate this cake but its going to look pretty pathetic
Can anyone help, please??

Do I need to start again and use S/R flour
Edit to add I also used 3 eggs and approx 25ml milk

Toxic_Lemon

Madeira cake is a denser texture so shouldn't rise very much. You could always make it again, exactly the same way and make a sandwich.

kathyd_2

If you're going to make a sandwich from it, cut the sponge horizontaly (sp?) With the top half cut out a circle all the way through (so you are cutting away the risen centre and end up with a top half of the cake looking a bit like a polo mint. Sandwich the top and bottom together with whatever, ie jam and fresh cream or buttercream or mascarpone and icing sugar, you decide. You should now have a cake with a hole in the centre but not all the way through. You could now fill the hole with fruit such as strawberries and drizzle in some quick gel, alternatively you could fill with a tin of fruit pie filling (cherry is delicious). Dredge with icing sugar.

HTH

Toxic_Lemon

I meant make a 2nd one and sandwich together with the first one. Not cut anything. Sorry, should have made that clearer.

kathyd_2

Toxic_Lemon wrote:

I meant make a 2nd one and sandwich together with the first one. Not cut anything. Sorry, should have made that clearer.

But she will need to cut the dome off both cakes otherwise it will make it difficult to sandwich together and if she cuts the dome off, the top won't look very good unless she covers it in buttercream or something.

honey28

Thanks. I had planned to cover it with royal icing and decorate. I know its meant to have a thicker density but it is quite literally only an inch deep :rotfl: I think I will use this as the cake in the trifle and try it again tomorrow using S/R flour.
What kind of flour did you use in your kathy? I remember you saying the other day you had made it and put it in freezer.

Toxic_Lemon

Ah ok, with you now. I'd slice a bit of the top off then flip over so the top is flat.

Toxic_Lemon

Why did you want to do a madeira? I don't think you can go wrong with a Victoria sponge, personally.

honey28

I normally make a basic sponge but at Christmas I buy a madeira from M&S, only this year I thought " I can do that". Obviously not :rotfl:

kathyd_2

Hi Honey, I used self raising flour (recipe in the Be-Ro recipe book which I bought in the Co-Op). Mine didn't rise like the picture in the book but it did rise more than yours. Made a slight well in the centre so it didn't have too much of a dome in the centre. Did you use eggs? Recipe is similar to yours, same amount of flour, only SR, 5oz caster sugar, 5oz butter or marg, 3 med eggs lightly whisked, lemon essence - didn't bother, just used grated zest. baked at 180c for about 1 hour - 1 1/4 hours.

If you are going to decorate with royal icing maybe a simnel cake mixture would be better? Maybe a bit late for experimenting though. Good luck

honey28

Thanks for your help both of you. I will salvage something from it. Thing is I've been baking all week (200 pieces of shortbread, decorated 4 fruit cakes) and to be honest making this cake was the last thing I wanted to do but it had been requested! Don't know if I can be bothered to make another....