Delia Smith's Madeira Cake

I stayed in doors on Saturday because it was so cold! We had the warmest July day at 23*C which was 10 degrees above the July average last Thursday, but Melbourne was back to its usual weather over the weekend with a top of 11*C! I stayed home and crocheted ~ a sneak peak at my rainbow granny stripe blanket below, and made a Madeira Cake from Delia Smith's Cake cookbook.



It was a pretty average cake, and I much preferred the passionfruit Madeira cake I made last year. I'm rather dubious of recipes which mixes everything into a bowl, it somehow lacks the refinement of a cake that you have to cream the butter and sugar, adding eggs one at a time, and gently folding in the flour. For the time poor home baker, this cake was really quick and easy to make. Perhaps a nice frosting could have made this cake more interesting.

I've never baked a cake with so many holes inside, but according to Betty Crocker, this is caused by a number reasons such as not enough liquids, the batter being over beaten, the cake not being baked in the middle rack, the oven being too hot or the cake being baked too long. I'm not sure what happened as I followed the recipe to the T, but the cake was nevertheless eaten despite the holes.