Cake makers - can you help?

[overthesea]

I have to make a big birthday cake in a deep 10inch square tin. I've never made one that big before (probably to be covered by Fondant roll out icing).

Can anyone suggest a good cake recipe that will rise and make a substantial cake or even just the quantities I'd normally need for a victoria sponge of this size.

I used a madeira cake receipe for my 10" square tin - A victoria sponge that large would probably collapse.

From memory I think I used an 8 egg recipe, I'll try and find it.

This is the one I used, I think I must have scaled it up to a 5 egg mix though (don't know where I got 8 egg from!!), so that would have been 10oz or butter, caster sugar and SR flour, 5 oz plain flour)

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8oz butter
8oz caster sugar
4 eggs, medium
½ level teaspoon vanilla essence
8oz self-raising flour
4oz plain flour

Line and grease the tin. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla essence. Sift the flours together, then fold into the creamed mixture to give a soft dropping consistency. If the mixture is too stiff, fold in 1-2 tablespoons water. Spoon into the tin. Level surface, then hollow out centre to a depth of about 1?. Bake above centre of oven , Gas mark 3, 325F, 160C, for 1½ - 1¾ hours. Smaller shallower cakes will take less time and larger ones a little more. Test by inserting a fine skewer into centre of cake ? it should come out clean when the cake is done.

I love this recipe for fruit cake. Have used it for:
Dnephew's birthday cake - 2 1lb loaf cakes stacked to make a campervan
DNiece's birthday cake - lasagne baking dish with a jar in the middle to make a treasure island
3 Christmas cakes - double the mixture, split between 8" round tins

For the kids cakes, I got some lovely dried blueberries, cranberries, cherries etc from the health food shop. Even Dniece tried some cake - she's 5 with ASD and a very restricted diet

Fantastic thank you both.

When you made your cakes (given they needed so long in the oven) how did you stop them getting burnt on top?

I've tried greaseproof in the past but they still burn.

low/middle position in the oven, and for a cake that size I reckon you'd need 140C for at least 2 hours. Make sure it doesn't come up too high in the tin as well.

Same as Jareth - low and slow

Oh! and make sure you have plenty of room in the saucepan when you add the bicarb, it fizzes like buggery. Makes me giggle every time!

BTW, when I made it for the DN's (aged 5 and 3) all the parents were thrilled to be given something vaguely approaching healthy food despite the fact that I covered the cakes in readymade icing and marzipan!! The kids were pretty pleased too, probably because the parents didn't mind them eating it LOL

Purple does this taste like Xmas cake? Also I have to make 10inch but I guess I just up the ingredients???

If you put dried mixed fruit and the right spices in, then yes it can taste like Christmas cake. It's got a lighter texture though, which is why I like it - I don't like soggy, dark fruit cake so it's probably more like a Dundee cake.

If you use vanilla essence and "big" fruit it'll taste completely different

It freezes well, so double the quantities, put as much as you need in your 10" tin then make a smaller one or some muffins with the leftover - double quantities gave me 3 8" rounds, about 3" deep...

I'm glad to read this as am about to make DD's birthday cake - was intending to do a chocolate sponge tray bake, but concerned now re. comments on large sponge collapsing. I'm tempted to do the madiera cake instead - do you think this would work scaled up in a 12"x9" roasting tin? I'm also rather freaked by the length of time in the oven - will it really need an hour and a half?? Or even longer?

I'm intending to freeze the cake and then carve it into the shape of Hello Kitty's head - I'm thinking that the denser texture of a madeira cake would work quite well for this, what do you think?

Loomer I did a rectangle of a shallow victoria sponge and then a circular tin and made it into Hello Kittys head. I drew a template in greaseproof paper round one of DDs books and it worked really well !
For larger cakes I tend to do rectangle victoria sponge and then just have one layer of icing on the top rather than a larger one with icing in the middle as my cakes ( any method) always sink !

Thanks Rosa - I must admit I was planning on just the one 'layer' of cake for exactly the same reason!

When you say a circular tin - do you mean that you drew around it? Or did you bake one rectangle sponge and a round one? If so how did you incorporate the two shapes?

I would say for a 10" sq, you would need to double that madeira recipe. otherwise it would be v v thin.

Cripes, really? That means 8 eggs, 16oz butter and 24oz flour?! I think I'll do 1.5 times the original recipe, otherwise I may have to stay up all night waiting for it to cook

Hang on - I've just found Mary Berry's tray bake recipe for lemon drizzle cake - I think I will try this (without the drizzle) as I trust Mrs Berry's baking...
For the record her recipe uses
* 225 g butter, softened
* 225 g caster sugar
* 275 g self-raising flour
* 2 tsp baking powder
* 4 eggs
* 4 tbsp milk
* 2 lemons, grated zest only
in a 12"x9" roasting tin.

Fingers crossed, don't let me down Mary!

madeira. I don't honestly think a traybake will work as a 10" square. low and slow is the key for large cakes. you need to scale up based on area, so a 10" square = 4 * 5" square. I will check a book in a mo and get back to you.

According to my book, 10" square = 9 eggs (and scale rest of recipe accordingly)

OK, reporting back FWIW, Mary's recipe did work BUT it made a sponge that is only 1" thick... so I'm gonna make another one tonight and sandwich them together.

So that'll be 8 eggs in total, apologies to sowhatis - you were right after all! Think I just need to get my head around making big cakes, and not get freaked out by the quantities .

Madeira is generally what you need if you're going to carve it and cover in fondant/butter icing as it's much more dense.

I'm pretty sure I've used an 8-egg recipe for a cake that large before (should have written it down!)

It was HUGE.. but lovely.

Post a pic when you're done?

Bit late now ...SOrry I did a rectangle and then a circle which was the head on top - so 2 cakes . Iced both but teh circle was made into Hello Kittys head. I can't uploads pics at the mo or would do !

It"s a day that only comes round once a year and no matter how old we get everyone wants to be made to feel special on their birthday.

you can make this cake.

This cake makes a great "grown up" chocolate birthday cake, with the cinnamon giving a slightly more sophisticated taste, for the child in all of us!

Ingredients

* ½ Cup English Unsalted Butter
* 1 Cup Water
* ½ Cup Vegetable Oil
* 5 Tablespoons Cocoa Powder
* 2 Cups Plain Flour
* 2 Cups Granulated or Caster Sugar
* ½ Teaspoon Salt
* ½ Cup Buttermilk or Yoghurt
* 1 Teaspoon Baking Powder
* 2 Free Range Eggs
* 1½ Teaspoons Cinnamon
* 1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
* 1 Packet Chocolate chips (Optional)

Method

* Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Grease a large bundt pan with cooking spray, or any kind of tube baking pan.

  Put the butter, water, oil, and cocoa powder in a medium saucepan and heat up to the simmering stage so everything is well combined, then remove from the heat.

  Meanwhile, sieve together the flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking powder and salt in a mixing bowl and then pour the chocolate mixture into the bowl with the dry ingredients and mix well. Then, add the buttermilk and stir in.

  Mix together the eggs and vanilla in a small bowl, and then add this and one packet of chocolate chips (use milk, plain or white, depending on personal preference!) to the batter and stir in.

  Now pour batter into your prepared pan and put in the oven for approximately 50 minutes. I check it at this stage, and it doesn't hurt if the inside is still slightly undercooked, as when it cools this becomes like a fudgy inside.

Tips

* I generally just give this a dusting of icing sugar before serving to finish off, as you can see in the picture. Works well served with ice cream.

Lemon meringue pie|Chocolate Cake Recipes