Help - turning a cupcake recipe into a full cake (Nadiya Hussain)

[Crepid]

Hi, I’m hoping someone with better baking knowledge can help me with this.

I’m going to make the recipe below this week. It’s a fancy strawberry cake but the original recipe is for cupcakes🧁

Nadiya puts a single whole shortbread into the bottom of each cupcake liner with a strawberry on top.

I’m going to be making this on a larger scale (22/24cm) tin so I was going to blend up the shortbread and use it as a base similar to a cheesecake.

What can I use to bind with the shortbread to make it retain a solid shape? The whole thing needs to be baked in the oven, unlike a cheesecake in the fridge, and I can’t keep the shortbread whole as the gaps are too large across the base of the tin. I need it to retain its shape and not just crumble to dust!

Also how long do you think I should bake it for? I’m assuming the time for a larger cake is longer than cupcakes - but how will the fruit (whole strawberries) affect it?

I’m a complete novice at this and just trying to make something nice for my DC

Thanks!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/strawberry_shortcake_91461/amp

Use melted butter to bind the crushed shortbread. You could also bake the cake part separately to the base and then layer it. Could add the strawberry to the top to decorate the cake instead.

I made a cake with a biscuit base once from one of those baked in boxes, I think it was just crushed biscuits and butter, but you baked that first then put the cake mix on top then baked again (it was a square bake to be cut into slices). I wasn't a fan tbh but others were

Other option could be making a thinish shortbread in the tin you intend to bake the cake in, let it cool then add cake mix on top and bake again, a bit like you would with cookie dough for brookies

Make a sable pastry, bake it, and then put the cake mixture on top and bake that?

Thank you all so much! Great ideas - I think I’ll blitz it and mix it up with some butter and then bake it twice. The strawberries need to sit on a base when they cook so I’ll need the shortbread to be in the oven with the cake unfortunately, rather than layering it

🤞🏻 it works out!

Shortbread crumbs and butter should work just fine. Just do the same thing you would do with a cheesecake base, but pour cake batter on top.

If you're going to go to the trouble of blitzing and reforming biscuits then baking.... why don't you just make a shortbread base? Paul Hollywood does a nice one with corn flour, but there are plenty of simple recipes.

I make a cheesecake with blitzed digestive biscuits and melted butter, set in the fridge rather than cooked if that helps...