Madeira cake by Mary Berry - 20/4/13

 

This is the first bake in Mary Berry's Baking Bible, and one that I had put off for a while as Mary describes the sponge as "rich and densely textured" and for this reason it didn't really appeal.  However, I was going to visit my family and wanted to bake them a cake, one that travelled well as I was travelling on the train, so I thought this cake was ideal. 

The cake batter followed the "all in one" method and was very easy to mix together.  I particularly enjoyed grating the zest of one lemon into the mixing bowl, it had such a fresh citrussy scent! 

The cake had a good buttery lemony flavour but the texture was dense, as the recipe says, and it was a little on the dry side.  Unfortunately, the cake didn't seem to go down too well with my family (now there's a first!) and I ended up bringing a lot of it home with me!

However, we found this cake definitely improved with age, and we ended up polishing it off with great enjoyment.  Husband particularly enjoyed this cake and said it was good, which was surprising as he usually likes a good topping on his cake to counteract any dryness.

I would bake this cake again, but next time I will remember to bake it at least a couple of days in advance, to allow the cake to mature and become moist.