Take On A Bake - (Off!) / Madeira Cake

Hi guys! So this is the first of my little series called 'Take on a Bake - (Off!)'. This is inspired by the new series of The Great British Bake Off - a show I really enjoy. Each week I will choose a recipe that was attempted by the contestants on the show and basically 'have a go at it'. This is purely for fun and I hope you enjoy seeing my attempts. So anyway on with this week!

This week one of the challenges was for the contestants to make a Madeira Cake. If you're a little bit of a history nerd like me and want to know the history of the Madeira Cake - CLICK HERE. So here we go with our attempt at the - dun dun dun - Madeira Cake!

For this recipe I actually used the very same recipe that one of the contestants used - Marie's! I felt this made it more 'Bake Off-y' (my attempt at word play) as it was from one of the contestants! I have provided a link to the recipe but if it makes it a little bit easier for you I will copy what you will need so you don't have to open too many links! (Just know that all credit obviously goes to her!)

LOOK AT ALL THE COLOURS

Okay so these are all the ingredients you will need -

• Caster Sugar
• Unsalted Butter (However I used Stork because Stork is my favourite butter to use for cakes)
• Self Raising Flour
• 3 Eggs
• 3 Oranges
• 2 Lemons
• Icing Sugar 
• A pinch of salt!

P.S. Ignore the pineapple chunks in the picture! (I had already uploaded the picture before I realised - silly me!) 

Okay the first step in Marie's recipe is;

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/165C Fan/Gas 4. Grease a 900g/2lb loaf tin with butter and line with baking parchment. 

Pretty simple stuff - so now for the second step;

2. In a bowl, cream the sugar and butter until pale and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating between each addition. Fold in the flour, a pinch of salt and the citrus zests.

I photographed each stage of this step so hopefully it will give you a guide at what the mix should look like.

After creaming the 150g of caster sugar and the 150g of butter!

Adding in each egg one at a time (I didn't pre-beat the eggs - I just cracked them straight into the mix and beat them from inside that - but one egg at a time).

The recipe didn't say whether the flour needed to be sieved in but I did anyway. #Yolo

- Additionally when it comes to folding in flour I tend to use a spatula as I think it allows me to make sure every little bit gets mixed in!

After folding in the 200g flour!

This is where you also add the pinch of salt!

ADD IN THE ZESTS AND MIX IN WELL!














Onto step 3! -

3. Pour the batter into the prepared tin, smooth the surface and bake for 1 hour. Check the cake after 40 minutes, if it is starting to brown too much cover with aluminium foil for the remaining cooking time. The cake is cooked when a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

 All ready to go!

ONE HOUR LATER ...

It went ok guys!

We have one half of a Madeira Cake! Hooray!

So continuing on from Marie's recipe we have step 4 -

4. Leave the cake to cool in the tin while you make the sugar syrup.

Another simple step - we like those. 

5. To decorate, cut the lemon and orange rind into very thin strips. Add 100ml/3½fl oz water and the caster sugar to a saucepan over a low heat, stir gently until the sugar is dissolved. Bring to the boil then add the rind to the pan, reserve a few strips of rind for decoration. Cook for about 5 minutes until a syrup forms and the rind is translucent.

Like I did for step two I will include images so it will give you a rough idea of how it should look. 

My very thin strips of both the orange and lemon skins! (rinds)

 The 100ml of water and 75g caster sugar. The caster sugar will eventually dissolve!

After the caster sugar has dissolved you need to wait for the water to boil and then add the orange and lemon bits. After a time it will begin to bubble and turn into a syrup! This also smells delicious!












Step 6 now!

6. Brush the syrup over the still-warm cake and set aside to cool completely. When the cake is completely cold, remove it from the tin.

Looking pretty yummy

At this point I was getting really excited because I've never made this type of cake before and I was pretty chuffed with the candied fruit and syrup. But anyway, now is time for the final step - step 7!

7.To make the icing, mix the citrus juices. Mix the icing sugar with enough juice to make a thin icing. Drizzle the icing over the cooled cake and finish with a few thin strips of citrus rind.

For the first half of the step I didn't take any pictures however it was pretty simple, I just added a teeny bit more icing sugar as the icing wasn't as thick as I would have liked it - but once I got icing I was happy with it looked something like this; 

Shiny!

I chose to not add any more strips of citrus rind for the top of the icing as for me the ones in the syrup were enough.

Anyway once all that properly dried I tidied it up a little and here is the finished product - 

So I hope you enjoyed reading this post as much as I enjoyed baking the cake! I have never attempted this kind of cake before so I am pretty proud of myself. Like I said this 'Take on a Bake (Off!)' series is inspired by the show 'The Great British Bake off' and the credit for the recipe goes entirely to the lovely contestant Marie. (To whom I wish all the best for in the show) 

As far as I'm aware next week's episode revolves around biscuits so that should be fun! 

Thank you for reading and if you are a fan of the Great British Bake Off be sure to let me know who your favourite contestant is! (I'm so far undecided - however my past favourites were Howard and Norman!) 

Ricicle x