Recipe #1: Nigella's Mother-In-Law's Madeira Cake

The very first chapter in this book is called "Plain cakes and sponges", a title that was greeted with a bit of disappointment on my part. I suppose it makes sense that you should be able to conquer the basics before moving onto more difficult or impressive recipes, but still, I wanted something a little bit more exciting than 'sponges'. I've never really been into cakes that much (a bit surprising you may think for someone embarking on a journey such as this), but all the same I love to bake - and more than anything I love to share my baking rather than eat it myself (which suits Chris right down to the ground I bet). There is something so satisfying in being able to see people enjoy something that you have created with your own two hands, especially if you have grown some of the ingredients yourself.

I have to admit that I thought about skipping the first chapter entirely, but then I felt a bit guilty and thought to myself that if I am going to do this I should at least do it properly and start from the very beginning.

So firstly I needed to cream the butter and sugar together - something that I tend to fail miserably at as I always seem to melt the butter completely, leaving me with a bowlful of sloppy sugary mess. I didn't do too badly this time, but I did forget most of the sugar, adding it to the recipe a few ingredients down the track. I do sometimes get a bit ahead of myself and start adding everything from the ingredients list to the bowl before I even read the method. Luckily I don't think it made much of a difference to the batter because once I had mixed all the ingredients together I was left with a beautiful ethereal-looking lemon yellow cloud in the bowl. It was actually quite delicious at that stage too, so consequently not all of the batter even made it into the cakepan... Unfortunately though, I managed to set the oven to the wrong temperature and ended up burning the top of the cake. But on a high note, I got to use my latest op-shop score - a resizable cake pan that I picked up for $1.50 at the Salvation Army shop. Bonus!

Nigella's version

Mine. Burnt and nowhere near as awesome-looking.
*Note: empty beer bottles possibly part of the reason....

So the verdict is: a delicious cake (I love the buttery, fluffy, lemony goodness), but it did end up being a bit dry so it could have been a whole lot better if I had my oven set at the right temperature, or even if I took it out of the oven 10 minutes earlier.

Definately one I would like to have another go at!
Chris' rating: 3/5