Classic Cake Series : Madeira Cake

My baking journey began when I was in class 7. We had a stove-top oven which resembled an idli cooker and the cake I had perfected was the sponge cake that was in the oven’s recipe book. Of course that was during the pre-internet stage and cake was still a western goody.

Along the journey I experimented variations of that lovely sponge. I never felt the need to try a different sponge until I actually started studying recipes and cakes. Now that I bake for commercial orders, I have little time left to bake something for myself. And each time I do get a chance I pick a naked cake, which is free from any kind of icing.

I spend a lot of time reading about classic cakes and decided that I am going to try all of them, in my own time, of course. The first on the list was the Madeira cake.

 This cake has a firm yet light and fine texture making it a perfect base for decoration. It is eaten with tea or  for breakfast and is traditionally flavoured with lemon. This cake dates back to 18th century. Madeira cake is similar to a pound cake or yellow cake.

It is named after Madeira wine, a Portuguese wine which was popular in England and the cake was served with wine. It is often mistaken that the cake originated from Madeira Islands.

Ingredients

175 gms / ¾ cup unsalted butter

175 gms / 1 cup caster sugar

3 eggs

15 ml/ 1 tbsp lemon juice

225 gms/ 2 cups all purpose flour

7.5 ml / 1 ½ tsp baking powder.

Method

Preheat the oven to 160⁰ C. Grease a 7 inch round deep cake tin and line with parchment paper. Sieve the flour with baking powder. Beat together butter and sugar till light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one egg at a time, beating well after each addition.

Stir in the lemon juice. Stir in the flour and baking powder. Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and smooth the top with the back of a spoon.

Bake for about 40 mins , until golden brown or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Leave the cake to cool in the til for about 45 mins.

Note:

The original recipe called for a baking time of 1 ¼ - 1 ½ hour, but my cake was ready in 40 mins or so.

I used two 6 inch pans and divided the batter equally.

About Me

Hey, thanks for stopping by! I am glad you found me amidst the million other food blogs on the world wide web.

I am Melisha and here’s a little about me. From being a child who hated eating, I grew up into a big foodie who HAS to eat something interesting every day. Cooking and baking are my favourite pastimes. 

Being the only child with a single parent, cooking came in very early into my life. By class 4, I knew to make a decent fish curry – a sample food for most Mangaloreans. I was in class 5 when I made my first chicken curry. It is till date the best dish I have ever prepared. Here’s something I cant resist telling you. It was a dish called chicken pot roast from a recipe book which comes with a product. It was the first time I tried marinating. I loved the fact that so many ingredients went in and the chicken would soak in it overnight that I put in extra ingredients (in fact all) from another recipe on the opposite page. The result was a yummy mix of I don’t know what! I still am very proud of what I did that day. Then of course daily cooking and Sunday experiments continued and there was no looking back.

I was in class 7 when I got into baking. A traditional oven which looked more like an idli cooker and a wooden spoon became my best friends. Of course, I had to rely on the recipe book that came with the oven. I had a base recipe and tried sssoooo many combinations. I experimented. All of them tasted great, but yes did have an occasional flaw. I would on purpose add a little  more of some ingredient to see what it did to the cake. Those experiments have taught me so many things that today I am glad I came that way.

Cakes for all occasions, free Christmas cakes for all those I met, occasional biscuits, a few cupcakes here and there. Several years later, I gifted myself an OTG out of the blue and a hand mixer. It was probably ‘that feeling’ that I would put it to good use.

In my 17^th year of baking and my first year as a mother of an adorable boy I decided, I was going to follow my passion and started Just Like Mum’s (www.facebook.com/justlikemumsbangalore)  in 2014. I knew I had to do something with my interests. Many friends encouraged me with regular orders. I started taking baking classes because I knew I was good at teaching and was confident of all that I had learnt over the years. I am blessed because I have a wonderful mum and husband who keep my interest as priority and work everything around it.

Why this blog? I loved writing, eating out and started out with this blog for restaurant reviews and now with so many recipes in my diaries, I wanted a place to keep the, safe. Now you know!

Thank you for patiently reading through my story. I hope you find what you are looking for in this blog.