Madeira Cake is easy, basic, buttery-ish, and great for cake decorating with fondant or sugarpaste because of its sturdy nature. But it’s perfect for dunking too!
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
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It’s one of my favourite plain cakes. I love using Madeira Cakes for celebration cakes because its dense texture makes it easier to handle and it lasts for up to 2 weeks. Not only does it last a long time, its dense texture makes it the perfect cake for decorating with buttercream and fondant (sugar paste).
You’ll find handy hints on baking and cake pan sizes below.
Madeira Cake Tips
As Madeira cakes have a dome shape when baked, you could try scooping out the middle of the batter and leaving a little hole in the middle before placing in the oven. This does help produce a flatter top but I don’t bother.
However, you could try placing a flower nail in the middle of your cake pan. I find that this does reduce the dome dramatically.
To level the cake, once you’ve released it from the cake tin, put a saucer in the cake tin and place the cake on top of it. You could then just slice off the dome using the top of the cake tin as a marker.
How long does Madeira Cake Last?
The cake will easily last a week (even 2) if kept in an airtight container, to stop it drying out. This means that if you are decorating it, you can take a couple of days for complicated ideas! Just remember to use a milk free buttercream icing!
Rainbow Madeira Cake
For a rainbow look when you slice the cake, just divide the batter up into 2 or 3 portions and colour with food colouring of your choice.
My granny used to do this with her butter cakes and we grew up calling them rainbow cakes. I like to do this for girls’ birthday cakes and always get a reaction.
Greasing and Lining Cake Pans
In reply to a question posed by a reader, how to know whether to line or not, as written in my recipe card:
Many cake tins used to need lining. These days though, you have the silicone sort and also non lining types. So if yours is an older style tin, grease, line, grease. The first greasing of the pan is to ensure that the baking paper sticks to the pan. Makes filling the tin with the batter so much easier, as the baking paper won’t be moving around in your tin.
Cake pans that don’t need lining will just require some light greasing. If you have just bought your cake pan, it should have instructions. If in doubt, just grease, line and grease.
Cake Pan Conversions (Scaling Up Cake Recipes)
My cake pans all have a depth of between 3 – 4 inches (about 7.5 – 10 cm). You definitely want to use a cake pan that has a minimum depth of 3″ (7.5 cm), to allow for the rise.
Starting with the recipe below for an 8″ cake, multiply by the corresponding quantity for each size.
4″/10cm – divide by 2.5 bake for about 40 minutes
6″/15cm – divide by 1.5 bake for about 45 – 50 minutes
7″/17cm – divide by 1.25 and bake for about 50 minutes
9″/23cm – x 1 and a quarter (1.25) bake for about 1 hour 10 minutes
10″/25cm – x 1.5 bake for about 1 hour 15 minutes
11″/28cm – x 2 bake for about 1 hour 20 minutes
12″/30cm – x 2.5 bake for about 1 hour 30 minutes
How to use Flower Nails for baking cakes?
For larger cakes, above 10″, I would suggest that you use flower nails when baking your cake. This is a flower nail. The reason for this is so the middle of your madeira cake will bake more evenly. As the metal flower nail heats up, it will conduct heat to the batter in the middle, so the sides don’t bake and brown way before the middle.
I much prefer using flower nails to a heating core.
Flower nails can also help to reduce the dome shape of a cake. Madeira cakes do tend to have dome shapes because of their higher moisture content.
How many you use will depend on the size of the cake. You can use more than one, placed at intervals, if necessary, especially if you are baking a long cake. This is how you do it:
- Grease your flower nails. I hate all specially formulated cake release, and only ever use butter for greasing.
- Place your nails upside down in the cake tin.
- Pour the batter over and bake. Remove the cake nails before slicing/decorating.
- Reduce the baking time by at least 10 – 20 minutes. This will depend on the size of your cake.
What are Cake Baking Strips?
Cake baking strips are insulating strips that are place around a cake pan to stop the edges of the cake from baking too quickly, and therefore browning too much. Cakes with a high liquid content, tend to brown quicker, especially eggless cakes.
So baking strips are perfect for eggless cakes.
If you are baking large cakes, whether madeira cake or not, these baking strips also come in handy, you can use them on their own, or in conjunction with flower nails.
Converting round to square cake pans
Move down in number by 1 inch. For e.g.:
8″ round cake pan = 7″ square cake pan
9″ round cake pan = 8″ square cake pan
Other Cake Pan Shapes
Round cake tins = Petal tins (i.e., same measurements)
8″ round tin = 8″ petal tin
Square cake tins = Hexagonal tins
8″ square cake tin = 8″ hexagonal cake tin
For more design ideas, check out the Cake Decorating Page.
You’ll also find lots of helpful tutorials like how to ice and fill a cake and how to cover a cake with fondant or sugarpaste icing.
Madeira Cake Recipe
Ingredients
- 220 g regular salted butter
- 220 g caster sugar superfine sugar (not powdered/icing)
- 250 g AP flour
- 2 Tbsp evaporated milk
- 4 large eggs
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp vanilla paste or extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 160˚C (fan 140˚C)/320˚F.
- Line and grease your cake tin as required.
- Sift the flour and baking powder.
- Place the butter and sugar into a deep mixing bowl (tabletop mixer is great) and beat until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes.
- Add the milk and vanilla and beat to mix thoroughly.
- Add the eggs, one at a time, adding a tbsp of flour with each one and beat for a minute, until well incorporated, before adding the next one. The flour will stop your batter from curdling.
- Add the flour and mix on the lowest speed until just combined. Don’t over mix.
- Pour the cake batter into the prepared tin. I like to lift the tin and firmly tap the base on a firm surface, to level and pop a few bubbles.
- Bake for 1 hour. Insert a skewer in the middle of the cake, if it comes out clean, it’s done.
- Let cool before taking out.
Hi Azlin, my madeira cake baked in an 8 inch tin sinks in the middle. I use 8 ozs self raising flour, 1 teasp baking powder, 2oz ground almonds, 8 ozs butter, 4 eggs, 1 teasp lemon extract and 2 tablespoons natural yogurt. I bake for approx 70 minutes. I need to bake 3 of these cakes for a wedding and I am panicking
Hi Brigid, madeira cake is really just a butter cake, like a pound cake, no ground almonds, no yoghurt.
I can’t really give you any advice on your cake, as it’s not my recipe, as listed here.
If you are looking for an alternative, fairly sturdy cake that can be decorated, with almonds, here’s one from my other site that’s popular with readers:
Eurasian Semolina and Almond Cake.
Dear Azlin
I am about to make a 9” square Madeira cake from your recipe and thought I would use flower nails.
My question is how many would I use and what would the placement of them be for best results.
Thank you for your help.
Margaret
Hi Margaret, 2 nails off centre would be perfect. So each one about a third from the edge on either side. I hope that made sense.
Can this recipe be altered for self raising flour?
Hi Sam, yes, use the same amount of self raising flour, and leave out the baking powder.
Made this today in an 8″ square cake pan by following your instructions and multiplying the recipe by 1.25. It turned out great – it’s a really yummy, solid cake that’s currently being frozen so it’s ready for fondant in a few days’! Thanks so much for your recipe, all of the pan-size adjustments and also your super helpful replies to people in the comments. It’s really appreciated :o)
Hi Natalie, thank you so much for your lovely words. I’m glad you found the recipe useful. If you are on Instagram or Facebook, I’d love to see a picture of the decorated cake! Just tag me @azlinbloor.
Hi Azlin. Thanks for this recipe and most especially the conversation . I have a baking tin like Alan Silverwood multisize 12″ X 4″ deep tin which allows me to bake 4, 6″ cakes at a time. I am hoping to make a single batter , divide it and add different flavour to each quater ( chocolate, orange, banana, vanilla)
Do you think this Idea would work ?
Would it be safe to use the standard 12″ square recipe , considering my other additions ?
If not, what would be the right measurements to use and the cooking time ?
Thanks a lot
Hi Emily, sorry for the late reply. If you are still looking for an answer, splitting the recipe into 4, then adding the flavouring is fine, as long as the adds are just those extracts that come out of little bottles. Like vanilla and food colouring. Adding a little cocoa powder should also be fine. But not a mashed banana or orange juice, that will interfere with the integrity of the batter.
Hello Azlin,
I’m in a bit of a pickle regarding resizing the amounts from your recipe for a Christmas Tree shaped tin!
Measurements are (roughly):
1 1/4 inches depth
9 1/2 inches length
1 inch at the smallest width
6 3/4 inches at the widest width
Any ideas as to how to figure out how much to adjust your recipe by? I’ve been searching the internet but everything I find is just mind boggling!
Hi Danielle, best thing to do with such an irregular tin is to measure its volume by filling it up by water. Then using the tin that has the nearest capacity. This is what you need to do:
Pour some water into your Xmas tree tin, just shy of the top, roughly where you’d like your cake to rise to. 1 1/4 inch isn’t very high for a cake.
Empty your jug and pour the water back into your tin to get the exact volume (unless you know how much you poured in).
Use the recipe for a cake pan that has the same or nearest to, volume.
8″ (20cm), 2″ high cake pan = 1.5 litre (6 cups)
6″ (15/16cm) 2″ high = 1 litre (4 cups)
I think yours might be around the 6″ round cake pan mark. Let me know if you need anymore help. The conversions for the recipe are above.
Thank you for your help. By my measure my tin holds 700ml – so less than a 6inch cake. Would perhaps the measurements for a 4inch cake ingredients be the best choice? (Or a 5inch one if I divide the above recipe by 2?)
I would suggest making the 6″ cake, and using the leftover batter for cupcakes.
Hi,
Do you add sugar syrup to your Madeira cake?
Hi Lillian, I don’t, as I bake them with the express purpose of using them to ice.
You can if you want to, but the recipe here gives you a dense cake to begin with, so it’ll get heavier and sweeter.
Hi Azlin,
I really do need your help please. I am a complete novice when it comes to baking & decorating cakes and I really want to have a go, as my daughter has asked
me if I could bake a birthday cake for my grandson’s 2nd birthday in December. I just need your advice on how I go about making a fairly standard size layer cake. I would like to try your Madeira cake recipe for this. Please could you tell me what size cake tins I need & quantities.
Kind regards
Anne S
Hi Anne, firstly, you need to decide how many the cake is going to feed. A “standard size” is usually an 8″ or 9″ round cake tin.
The 8″ should feed 12 people, and the 9″, 16, in small portions. If you can just imagine, first you quarter the cake, then you slice each quarter into 3 or 4 slices.
When you say layer cake, you mean, just filled with icing and jam, don’t you? You are not talking about 2 cakes placed on top of each other, which would be a tiered cake.
Whatever size tin you go for, bake the cake according to the recipe above (which is for an 8″ cake). I give the conversions on this page for each size. Let me know if you need help with that.
Then you let the cake cool (I always bake the cake the day before), and fill it. Here are the pages you need for that:
Icing and Filling Cakes with Buttercream:
https://www.linsfood.com/icing-and-filling-cakes-with-buttercream/
If you want to cover the cake with fondant (ready rolled works):
https://www.linsfood.com/covering-cake-with-fondant-sugarpaste-icing/
You’ll find a gallery of cakes, if you fancy some ideas, half of them are pictures, with no tutorials:
https://www.linsfood.com/cake-decorating/
Let me know what other help/information you need.
Hi, please can you tell me do you use granulated or caster sugar? About to make my first Madeira cake thanks
Hi Angela, definitely caster sugar, because of its finer grains. I didn’t realise I hadn’t specified that. I’ll edit and add that bit.
Hi Azlin.
Not sure if my first message got to you. I have been asked to bake a 12″ square Madeira cake with height of about 4″. Could you tell me what measure of ingredients I need, and how long for baking. Also should I use a flower nail? Would really appreciate your help, as other sites state different amounts for a 12″ square cake. So confused!!!!!
Hi Sandi
12″ square = 13″ round
So, just multiply all the ingredients by 3.
My cakes are all about 3″ in height. As you are planning to fill in with icing and jam, you will definitely be able to get the 4″ in height.
As it is a big cake, I would certainly recommend using a flower nail in the middle of the cake pan.
Good luck!
Thanks Azlin. Will I need to x3 for butter icing ingredients too? Will be putting a crumb coating over cake before covering with ready roll icing, as well as filling cake with jam and butter icing. X
2 portions of butter icing ought to do, as you only need it for the crumb coat and the filling. So x 2.
Hi,
I need to bake a 16″ x 10″ Madeira cake (130cm) and need help with calculating the quantity of ingredients required. In the past, I have just estimated, sometimes good, sometimes not so good. Can you help please?
Hi Modele, as a future reference, all you do is find the volume of your cake pan. I always assume that people are going for a depth of 3 inches, so I just calculate the area of your pan. In this instance:
16 x 10 = 160
The pan with the nearest area square to that is a 13″ square pan:
13 x 13 = 169
The equivalent round cake tin for an 13″ square tin is 14″ round.
So all you need to do is multiply EVERYTHING by 3.5.
770g (27 oz = 1.7 lb) regular salted butter
770g (27 oz = 1.7 lb) sugar
875g (7 cups) plain flour
7 Tbsp evaporated milk
14 large eggs
3 1/2 tsp baking powder
3 1/2 tsp vanilla paste
That’s a huge cake. So I suggest that you use 2-3 flower nails inserted at intervals when baking it. This will ensure that the middle cooks as quickly as the edges. You can read more about flower nails in the article above.
I hope that helps. x