GIANT CAKE!!! Please save me!!!

[RibenaFiend]

So, I've been asked to make my friends PFB's first birthday cake. I'm suitably honoured and excited about this! I've planned the cake and the fondant designs (Barry the fish with fingers anyone?!) My problem is that it's for 30 grown ups (and splatterings for babies) and so as I'm terrified of making a stacked cake it's going to be a 12inch circular cake.

I'm thinking that to be a strong stable structure that Madeira cake may be the way forwards but I've never made a Madeira cake before! I want to slice it and sandwich it with buttercream (yes real buttercream!) and jam but is that suitable?

I'm wary of "scaling up" a recipe because I'm worried the outside will go all crispy and overcooked so I would be VERY grateful of any advice you could offer me!

Instead of slicing (something that always fills me with dread) it is easy to make 2 sponges. Madeira tends to cook flat, unlike a normal sponge which can rise in the middle, so should be easy enough.

As long as your timings are correct, I see no reason why it would go crispy or overcook.

Good luck!!

12" round is not as big as 12" square, but we tried several times in our test kitchen at work and found that you could only bake a 12" square madeira successfully by putting a cone in the middle. Otherwise the outside gets decidedly crisp before the middle gets cooked through. The problem is that the middle of the cake is 6" away from the outside of the pan.

An alternative method was subsequently found by someone else and it involved changing temperatures part way through, and covering with baking parchment to stop it drying out. If you want details, let me know.

for a really decent madeira, use 1kg each of marg, sugar and flour, and 20 eggs, and split between 2 tins. Will take between 70 and 90 mins to bake @ 160. If its starting to crisp before its cooked in the centre, turn it down 10 degrees and cover with tinfoil

Wrapping the tin in newspaper like you would for a fruitcake also helps :-)

the cheats method is to make a smaller cake, and have some bar cakes or other round cakes with the same icing colours on, slice into the big cake, and pass out the others as required!

Bake it at 130 degrees. Its perfectly possible to bake a 12" cake nicely at this temperature.

imnoraslimjim what size are the 2 tins you'll split this mixture between? I want to make 2 square cakes to layer up. The tin is 23cm x 23. 20 eggs sounds like a lot of cake mixture!

Sorry, i've been offline for a couple of days. I use that recipe at least once a week (I sell cakes from home) and yes it does sound like a lot of eggs but it makes a lovely soft but dense cake that is great for stacking and carving, and keeps for at least 10 days after baking. Its a Maisie Fantasie recipe if you want to look it up

imnotaslimjim for that madeira cake, is it plain flour? Do you beat it like crazy - just trying to figure how to achieve that lovely dense but soft texture of a classic madeira?

I use self raising in all my cakes cake and yes, I use a Kenwood and beat the arse out of it. Also, make it the day before its needed, as it does firm up overnight

I have used this recipe and it was lovely, after seeing someone recommend it on here.

I did slice it and found it quite easy, placed cocktail sticks all around the middle and then used some fishing wire, was quite impressed it worked!