Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A

Hi all,
Pls can anyone help. I have an order for a 10″ cake of 4″ height but the customer does not want the cake cut in the middle and sandwich together. What is the best way of getting this done and recipe for a 10″ square madeira cake with 4″ height. Thanks.

Hello mn2

Does your customer not want the cake to be filled at all? Maderia cake would be terribly dry without a filling,.
This recipe http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/4576/wedding-cake-zingy-lemon is excellent, many members have given positive feed back and I’ve baked it several times with brilliant results. If you don’t want that much lemon juice you can either omit it and replace the fluid with water or use half the amount lemon and make the rest up with water or use another flavour. The recipe can be scaled up here:
http://www.cakeflix.com/blog/how-to-work-out-what-size-cake-tin-to-use
This is for a standard 3″ deep recipe. To make a 4″ deep cake increase the scaled up recipe by a further 25%
You can add moisture into the cake by brushing or injecting a flavoured simple syrup over it once baked.
If you can give a little more detail please it would be helpful.

Hi madeitwithlove,
Thanks for the response. Yes she does not want it filled at all but can be crumb coated with buttercream. She comes from Africa and says cake are baked and not filled with buttercreams and ganache in Africa, because they are too sweet.
What type of flavoured syrup do you mean? Thank you so much.

Any flavour syrup which might be preferred by the customer can be used, and one which compliments the flavour of the Madeira cake. Simple syrup is made by boiling together equal quantities of sugar and water for a minute or two.
Stir the sugar and water together gently until the sugar begins to dissolve then leave it to boil without stirring. If you see a a few grains of sugar on the side of the saucepan just wash them down with a wet pastry brush, if left they’ll crystallize and make little hard lumps. Once the syrup is made place a lid of the pan and set it aside to cool but not too cold. To flavour syrup with lemon, orange or lime add the zest of the fruits to the sugar water and boil as above, cool strain and use. Avoid the white pith which makes a bitter taste. The strength of flavour is dependent on personal taste, the more zest used the stronger the flavour. For vanilla syrup add one whole vanilla bean during boiling. When cool scrape out the bean pulp and add to the syrup. Pop bean husk in a jar of sugar to make vanilla sugar for future use.
With a fork or skewer prick the surface of the cake and brush the luke warm syrup on the cake and allow it to absorb. Wrap the cake up in either several layers of cling film or a heavy duty food bag and store in an airtight container. If you are freezing the cake do not apply syrup until you require the cake, a day before is better as it allows full absorption of the syrup. Add syrup only on a fully defrosted cake to prevent sugar crytallization.