Memoirs of an Amateur Cook

As mentioned in an earlier post, I had promised work colleagues I would bring a cake in forgetting the guy I share an office with can’t eat chocolate – I felt so guilty leaving him out so I promised him any cake he wanted and madeira cake is what he chose.

I seem to be going through a Nigella phase at the moment so adapted a recipe from ‘How to be a Domestic Goddess’

Madeira Cake

Serves 10+

240g margarine

200g caster sugar, plus 2 tbsp extra for sprinkling

Zest of one lemon, chopped fine

Juice of half a lemon

3 large eggs

210g self-raising flour

90g plain flour

1. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees.  Grease a loaf tin and line with a tin liner.
2. Cream the butter and sugar together and add the lemon zest.
3. Add the eggs one at a time with a tablespoon of the flour for each.
4. Gentley mix in the rest of the flour followed by the lemon juice.
5. Scrape the mixture into the pan and level with a spatula. 
6. Sprinkle with the remaining caster sugar and bake for one hour.
7. Remove to a wire rack and allow to cool in the tin before turning out.

I have reduced the amount of lemon juice in the recipe as I often find that Nigella’s recipes are a bit too lemony even when the cakes aren’t supposed to be ‘lemon cakes’! I remember baking Mr MAC a vanilla cheesecake one valentines day one year and he was a bit disappointed that it tasted more of lemon than vanilla!!  He still brings up the ‘lemon cheesecake’ I made him…

I also am a big advocate of using margarine (I tend to use Stork) instead of butter in baking recipes and have recommend so here.  You can use margarine straight from the fridge which is much more convenient and means that you can bake whenever you feel like it without too much pre planning.  I also find creaming margarine and sugar together is much kinder on arthritic joints than using softened butter!  I don’t believe that using margarine compromises on taste for the majority of recipes so all in all, a good substitute that you may wish to consider using in future.

The cake came out a success and I took it into work the following day.  Having cut it into smaller pieces (I reckon this cake would do 20 small pieces, 10 large slices), I left a plate out in the corridor for all to enjoy.

By the time I went home, only one piece remained so it appeared to have gone down well.  Most importantly, my chocolate deprived colleague was at last able to enjoy a treat that was brought into work.

Nice and buttery…Madeira Cake

Not a very good photo I must apologise…..think I need to get to grips with my new camera!