another madeira cake

I baked this madeira cake (or pound cake - I don't think they're entirely interchangeable terms, but to me they're pretty much the same) a few weeks ago - I didn't even have any inkling of a craving for madeira cake like I did last year. My feeble excuse for madeira cake this time was because I didn't want to waste the zest of the lemon sitting in my fridge. However, this led to the discovery of a pretty awesome cake.
Original recipe below, however I halved the recipe, and used brandy instead of cognac.

Verdict: This cake is delicious, and is amazingly even better with each day it ages!
Score: 10/10

1/2 pound (2 sticks or 8 ounces or 226 grams) butter, at room temperature, plus more for greasing the pan 1 1/2 cups (200 grams) all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting the pan 1/2 teaspoon (3 grams) baking powder Salt 4 large eggs, separated 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons (186 grams) sugar 1 tablespoon Cognac [brandy works as well, as does rum, as would one teaspoon of an extract of your choice] 1 1/2 teaspoons grated lemon zest. 1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour a loaf pan. Sift the flour onto waxed paper and then spoon it gently back into the sifter, adding the baking powder and a good pinch of salt. Sift the mixture twice more, each time spooning it lightly into the sifter. [I know what you must be thinking: Beard expect me to sift my dry ingredients three times? But oh, it lends to the most delicate, light crumb and texture. Don't skimp!] 2. Using an electric mixer, whip the egg whites until they hold soft peaks and then gradually beat in 1/2 cup (100 grams) of the sugar, two tablespoons at a time. Transfer to a bowl. 3. Fit the electric mixer with a paddle attachment and cream the butter until light and fluffy. Beat in the remaining six tablespoons (86 grams) of sugar until fluffy. Beat in the egg yolks until light and lemon-colored and then add the Cognac and zest. 4. Gradually fold the sifted flour mixture into the butter-egg mixture. Fold in the beaten egg whites just until the batter is smooth. Pour batter into the prepared pan and bake in the oven for 35 to 45 minutes or until a toothpick pierced in the center comes up clean. Cool in pan ten minutes on a rack, then cool the rest of the way out of the pan.

another madeira cake?

I just found this recipe. It looks delightfully promising - so I thought I'd post it here as a reminder to myself to try it one day (perhaps soon...)

madeira cake?

I've had a bit of a craving for madeira cake for quite a while now. Every so often while grocery shopping in my local Tesco I would oh so casually find myself in the aisle that stocked cakes, so how could I not wander over to the madeira cake and gaze slightly longingly at it just sitting there, looking so deliciously moist and dense and sweet? I always somehow managed to resist the temptation to buy it though. Even with J on numerous occasions catching me red-handed and then exclaiming "why don't you just buy it??". I think it helped that I expected that one day, I would be able to satisfy my craving on my own and not have to rely on the supermarket version full of unwanted preservatives and other unknown substances. It is a little strange that I have been craving madeira cake at all, given that I despise butter on its own, but stranger things have happened.

Since my failed attempt a few months ago I was beginning to wonder if it was actually possible for me to bake a satisfactory madeira cake, especially since most madeira cake recipes online talked about adding lemon. I decided that this was a big no no - if I want a lemon cake, I'll make my own lemony lemon cake. So then I thought that maybe I should be looking for pound cake recipes. I was going to try Martha Stewart's recipe, but I had buttermilk to use and I figured could find a recipe that used buttermilk. I settled on this, and decided to make just half the quantity. But while I was halfway through measuring all the ingredients (having already put the sugar and butter in the bowl) I realised that I had halved the sugar, but not halved the butter. And then I realised that the recipe in its current proportions would most likely not have yielded me a moist, dense madeira cake at all! So I set about modifying it and hoping for the best. Surprisingly, the end result was a decent madeira cake - it actually tasted fantastic to me when I ate it freshly baked (but then what baked good freshly removed from an oven doesn't?). However when I ate it the next day, I found the taste of butter to be rather overpowering. But J assured me that it was perfect just the way it was, so here is the recipe.

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1/8 tsp baking soda
225g butter
1 3/4 cups caster sugar
3 eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla essence

Method
Preheat oven to 160 degrees Celsius
In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs one at a time, beating well between after each addition.
Mix in the vanilla essence
Gently mix in flour mixture alternately with the buttermilk.

I found this was enough mixture for 1 loaf tin (approx 9 x 11 inch) and 1 round 18 inch tin.

Bake for 40 minutes.

And something I discovered as a result of baking this cake, and the chocolate cake (not yet blogged) - buttermilk makes the tops of cakes very crusty.