Madeira Layer Cake

Sounds simple enough, I suppose, how difficult can it be. After thinking about which type of cake to use, I decided on Madeira.

Home-made madeira cake tends to be very unlike the shop-bought variety, and is a little more robust.

This cake recipe comes from Quick & Easy Celebration Cakes, by Joanna Farrow.

10oz Unsalted softened Butter

10oz. Caster Sugar

5 Eggs

4 Tablespoons of milk

13oz of Self Raising Flour

1 Tablespoon of Vanilla Extract

Pre-heated oven Gas mark 3/160C/325F

Cream the butter and sugar together. Beat the eggs in another bowl, add the milk, and mix. Gradually alternate the egg mix into the butter and sugar mix, adding the flour in small amounts. Put the batter into the tins and bake for 1 hour. Leave to cool a little in the tins and turn out onto a wire rack.

When the cakes are cooled, cut whichever cake you judge to be the larger (risen slightly more) with a serrated edged knife (this gives a better cut.

The recipe for the filling and icing/frosting is from Gorgeous Cakes by Annie Bell

For the frosting/icing you will need:

120g butter

100g Icing Sugar

300g Cream Cheese

1 Tablespoon Vanilla Extract

Again, beat together the butter and sugar, and work in the cheese and vanilla extract with a whisk.

Taking the cake which you cut in half, use the bottom half as the bottom of the cake. Using the serrated knife, trim the top half of this cake to create a flat surface.

Spread the filling over the first layer (bottom layer), and place the trimmed cake on top, spread the remainder of the filling and top with the other cake.

Ice/frost the cake, and leave it in the fridge for at least a half hour, to allow the frosting/icing to set a little. It will not set rock hard, just set sufficiently to be able to decorate it.The cake in Annie Bell’s book is decorated with multi-coloured chocolate flavoured beans. As I already had a pack of these, I used the pink ones on top of the cake, and for the sides, pink and lilac, to tie in the with raspberry jam in the filling. I also used some edible pink holographic glitter. This can be bought from any good cake accessory/decorating shop.

The finished cake, for me anyway, is quite rich with cream cheese and mascarpone. The flavour in the jam cuts through all that creaminess. This is more of a dessert cake than a ‘slice-with-a-cuppa’.

The search for THE cake which I will make for the special celebration happily continues.