This cake makes a great Chrismas cake alternative for people who don’t like dried fruit. If, as in our family, you end up doing both fruit and madeira, try making this one square for a different look.
For this recipe there are two alternative methods: with and without a food processor. Both ways give good results. Either way you will need an 8″ / 20cm round or a 7″ / 18cm square cake tin, some greaseproof paper and a wire cooling rack. Without a food processor, you will also need a large mixing bowl and an electric hand mixer.
Recipe: Madeira Cake
Summary: Perfect for icing
Ingredients
- 8oz / 225g plain flour (sifted)
- 1 very heaped tsp baking powder
- 6oz / 175g softened dairy-free spread
- 6oz / 175g caster sugar
- 3 medium eggs
- 1½ tsp vanilla essence
- 2 tbsp soya milk/rice milk/oat milk
- grated zest of 1 lemon
Instructions
By hand
- Pre-heat the oven to Gas Mark 3 / 170°C / 325°F
- Line and grease an 8″ / 20cm round cake tin or 7″ / 18cm square one.
- Sift together the flour and baking powder.
- Cream together the spread and sugar until light and fluffy.
- Beat the eggs together in a dish and add the vanilla essence
- Add the egg mixture to the spread and sugar a little at a time, adding about a dessertspoonful of flour with each addition of egg to prevent curdling. Blend each addition thoroughly.
- Add the milk and lemon zest. Mix thoroughly.
- Pour into the prepared tin and level the top with the back of a spoon.
- Bake for 1h30 to 1h45. Test whether or not the cake is cooked by inserting a skewer. If it comes out clean the cake is cooked.
- After removing the cake from the oven, leave it to cool in its tin for a few minutes, then transfer to a wire cooling rack. Remove all greaseproof paper and leave to cool.
In a processor
- Pre-heat the oven to Gas Mark 3 / 170°C / 325°F
- Line and grease an 8″ / 20cm round cake tin or 7″ / 18cm square one.
- Put everything into the food processor and “whizz” until the mixture is smooth and looks very creamy. I tend to use the medium speed.
- Pour into the tin and cook as for the hand made version.
Quick Notes
We tend to split this cake and fill it with a layer of “butter icing”, then marzipan and ice it with roll-out icing which can be decorated with marzipan, holly leaves and berries, bells etc..
Variations
As with all the other cake recipes in this collection, I have made this very successfully with 81% Stone Ground flour. As before, I would advise using self-raising flour and still adding the baking powder. I put a dessertspoonful of water in with the eggs when I mix them up, to compensate for the extra absorbency of the bran content.
Preparation time (duration): 15 minutes
Cooking time (duration): 1 hour 30 – 1 hour 45 minutes
Diet type: dairy-free
Number of servings (yield): 12
Meal type: dessert
Microformatting by hRecipe.
Hi, please can you indicate how to scale up your madeira cake recipe for larger numbers of people – we want to use this recipe for a much larger celebration cake (madiera is ideal for wedding cake for example, because it is firm enough to hold the heavy icing).
Thank you