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Original poster

Chocolate Madeira cake?

15 replies

Biscuitsandtea · 16/09/2013 20:19

Looking for some advice - does anyone have a recipe for a chocolate Madeira cake?

DS asked me to make him a chocolate and salted caramel buttercream cake for his birthday, which I'm very happy to do. However, as it is for his party, DH and I thought we might attempt to make it into a pirate ship for him so instead of normal chocolate sponge I was looking for a chocolate Madeira cake recipe as I've always found Madeira cake a bit firmer / less crumbly for carving / shaping / covering.

So, does anyone have a recipe or can I adopt my usual Mary Berry Madeira recipe? That has 225g SR flour + 50g ground almonds usually. Could I perhaps swap for 175 SR flour + 50g cocoa + 50g ground almonds?

I was going to bake a trial round version to test the recipe before I try to make a big rectangular one but wondered if anyone had any tips (or reasons why this won't work!) before I do?

Many thanks :)

OP posts:

Original poster

Biscuitsandtea · 17/09/2013 10:20

Also, should I take the lemon rind out? Is that just there for flavour (and hence unnecessary if I'm chocolateifying?) or does it perform some sort of texture purpose? Cheers :)

OP posts:

nannycook · 17/09/2013 13:55

Mmmm i have never put lemon rind in my madeira cakes although alot of recipes call for it, as its a trial guess you could try it and see. Good luck and let me know how you get on with that as never made a choccy madeira before.

nannycook · 17/09/2013 14:02

Original poster

Biscuitsandtea · 17/09/2013 16:23

I'm going to try it tonight once the kids are in bed so will report back.....

OP posts:

nannycook · 17/09/2013 19:45

Please do.

Original poster

Biscuitsandtea · 17/09/2013 20:02

Well I did a like for like swap of 50g SR flour for 50g cocoa and left out the lemon rind. Mixture was quite thick so I added (a fair bit of) milk to loosen it up a bit. It's in the oven now. Maybe I'd better put GBBO on in case they're doing a chocolate Madeira....

I'm wondering whether I Gould have maybe made the cocoa into a paste first or something. Anyway, will let you know how it turns out hope I don't get distracted by GBBO and burn it

OP posts:

2ofstedsin24weeksistakingthep · 18/09/2013 07:37

Hope it went well OP. I've never made chocolate madeira as I find madeira a bit dry but when making chocolate cake I always mix the cocoa with a little boiling water. Not sure why but I saw it in a book years ago and it seems to work for me.

SilasGreenback · 18/09/2013 07:46

You can make a very simple pirate ship simply cutting a round cake in half and sticking the two bits side by side before icing, so no carving needed. You then use sweets to make cannons etc, a wooden kebab stick and paper for mast and a play mobile pirate. It's the sweets that make the kids like it! Cannons of flakes or fudges. Piles of malteasers next to them.

Original poster

Biscuitsandtea · 18/09/2013 12:40

That's kind of what we were doing but it used a big rectangular cake cut and then stacked to make a good pirate ship shape (don't think one circle cake would be big enough as it is for 20 kids), so it wasn't carving really that I was doing I suppose it's just the covering of cut sides with buttercream that gets messy with softer crumbly cakes.

Then I was going to use curly wurlys to make rails on it and polos for portholes and skewers and card for sails. I love the idea of the canons and cannonballs though :) will have to see if I can find a toy pirate anywhere...

OP posts:

Original poster

Biscuitsandtea · 18/09/2013 12:41

Oh, and I haven't cut the trial yet to see how it went - will look at it tonight....

OP posts:

Original poster

Biscuitsandtea · 20/09/2013 06:45

Ok, I'm sure you've been waiting with baited breath for my verdict...

So we made the MB one (with no lemon rind and. 50g cocoa instead of SR flour plus some milk) and it turned out ok. Nice smooth consistancy and looked nice and firm when we cut it. Didn't taste especially chocolatey though.

We also made this recipe which I found on google

I would say the texture wasn't quite as firm as MB's but it was so much nicer and tasted more chocolatey (even though they both had 50g cocoa in - I guess the ground almonds in MB's or the milk is something must have negated the cocoa?)

So we went with the google one in the end and made a mega big sponge of it yesterday which we then constructed into a pirate ship last night and did a crumb coating of buttercream. T'was a wee but tricky for the crumbing as it was still a little crumbly but chocolate cake is often more crumbly than normal sponge. So all in all I'm pretty pleased with it. Just need to do a top coating of buttercream and some add ons and we'll be good to go.....

OP posts:

SilasGreenback · 20/09/2013 11:30

Glad it worked out. I have to make a nerf gun shaped cake in two weeks so might try your recipe!

nannycook · 20/09/2013 14:39

Biscuit, i had the same with a shark cake i made yesterday, total nightmare to crumbcoat.

I also mix my cocoa powder in hot water first to a smooth paste and allow to coo.

Original poster

Biscuitsandtea · 20/09/2013 16:39

A nerf gun! Eeek! I have to say I love all this birthday cake making :)

OP posts:

bacon · 05/10/2013 14:34

You wont get a decent chocolate cake with a small amount of cocoa powder I'm not a fan. I much rather a real chocolate cake, this is moist. You slightly freeze it to prevent crumbling.

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