Maderia Cake

This is a classic English cake served in the afternoon with Maderia wine, which is how it got it name. It is a rich and sweet cake that can be baked in a bread pan or small round. The main thing about a maderia cake is it’s cracked top. While there are lots of variations with fruits and herbs, I am presenting the classic lemon maderia. My only caveat is that for me this recipe is too sweet and I generally cut back on the sugar, but that’s a personal preference.

Ingredients

  • 400 g Cake flour – you can make it yourself (2.5 cups)
    • 360 g All purpose flour
    • 40 g Corn starch
  • 6 g Baking powder (1.5 tsp)
  • 2 g Kosher salt (0.25 tsp)
  • 270 g Butter – softened (10 oz)
  • 200g + 20 g Sugar (1 cup + 2 TBL)
  • 1 Lemon – zest + juice
  • 3 Eggs
  • Candy lemon zests – optional for topping

Process

  1. Mise en Place – measure and prepare your ingredients prior to starting.
  2. Preheat oven to 325 F (163 C).
  3. Butter 8″x4″ pan and line bottom and sides with paper.
  4. Mix all the dry ingredients getting an even blend. Set aside.
  5. Mix the butter, 200g sugar, and lemon zest. Using the paddle attachment on your mixer at speed 3, mix for ~4 mins. You may need to scrap down the sides.
  6. In a series of three iterations, add one egg the butter mix and a spoon of flour mix. Let it mix into the butter mix and repeat three times.
  7. Add lemon juice and rest of flour. At this step only mix until you get a thick but well integrated batter. You can over mix this cake and it will turn out with too smooth a texture.
  8. Spoon batter into pan careful to work into the corners without disturbing the paper side walls. Level the batter.
  9. Sprinkle the 20g of sugar on top.
  10. Bake for 1 hour.
    1. Optional topping – I keep a container of candied lemon zests (long strips of lemon zest boiled in sugar water and stored in the same water in the fridge) that I put on the cake for the final ten minutes of baking. You want the garnish to be hard and brittle, but not burnt.
  11. Let cool in pan on a cooling rack for at least 45 mins. The cake will be very soft and fragile when hot.
  12. Remove from pan and continue to cool. You can eat while warm, but I find it better to cool in the fridge overnight.
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