The Lady’s top 10 tips for baking the perfect cake

Plus Annie Bell’s chestnut Dundee recipe for you to try

1 Oven temperature: is it accurate or does it fluctuate wildly? An oven thermometer will help to ensure an even, accurate temperature. Remember to preheat the oven.

2 To separate eggs, use them cold. If the recipe demands room-temperature eggs, separate in advance and leave them to warm.

3 To soften butter quickly: cut into small chunks; or pound the butter with the end of a rolling pin; or put the butter in a bowl over a saucepan of hot water.

4 Measure ingredients correctly, using either metric or imperial weight, but don’t mix the two. And use a large enough bowl in which to combine all the ingredients.

5 Always sift the flour well, to aerate.

6 Use the right size of cake tin (as specified in the recipe).

7 Line the cake tin with baking parchment, or grease well and dust with flour.

8 To check whether a cake is done, test with a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake; it should come away clean (don’t be tempted to look inside the oven until at least two-thirds of the way through the baking time).

9 Leave cake to rest for a couple of minutes when it is out of the oven; remove from tin and place on a wire rack. Make sure the cake is cool before attempting to ice it.

10 Clean your oven regularly

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Annie Bell’s chestnut Dundee (pictured top)

Chestnut flour is rich and aromatic, and sticky by comparison with standard cake flour – which makes it perfect for fruitcakes that are already that way inclined. This dense fruited cake is based on a traditional Dundee recipe. It’s gorgeously squidgy and, as ever, it’s also a long-keeper.

Makes 1 x 20cm cake

Ingredients

• 200g unsalted butter, diced
• 200g demerara sugar
• 1 tablespoon treacle
• 4 medium eggs
• 300g chestnut flour
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon mixed spice
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 4 tablespoons dark rum
• 300g raisins
• 200g sultanas
• 200g currants
• 100g glacé cherries (un-dyed)
• 100g mixed peel
• 70g-80g whole blanched almonds

Kit

• 20cm non-stick cake tin with a removable base, 9cm deep
• Baking paper
• Food processor
• Foil
• Pastry brush

Little extras

• Unsalted butter for greasing
• 150g apricot jam for glazing (optional)

Method

Preheat the oven to 140C fan/160C electric. Butter the non-stick cake tin with a removable base (9cm deep), and line the base and sides with baking paper. Cut out a circle of baking paper for the top of the cake.

Cream the butter and sugar together in a food processor, then add the treacle and the eggs, one by one. Chestnut flour tends to be too sticky to sift, so add this as it is to the cake mixture, but sift over the spices and the baking powder.

Whizz briefly to blend, then add the rum a tablespoon at a time. Transfer the mixture to a large mixing bowl and fold in the dried fruit, cherries and mixed peel. Spoon into the prepared tin and smooth the surface with a spoon. Arrange the nuts in lines going out from the centre, about 2cm apart at the edge, gently pressing the flat side into the cake mixture. This will make the cake easier to cut than scattering them.

Cover the surface of the cake with the circle of baking paper and bake for 1 hour, then turn down the oven to 130C fan/150C electric and bake for a further 3 hours until a skewer comes out clean, or just with a few sticky crumbs clinging.

Leave it to cool in the tin and then wrap it in foil or in a double thickness of baking paper and leave for 24 hours – or it can be matured in the traditional fashion.

If you wish, you can also finish the cake with a glaze. Warm the jam in a small saucepan, press it through a sieve and lightly brush the top and sides of the cake. Leave to set for an hour.

Taken from Annie Bell’s Baking Bible, with photography by Con Poulos, published by Kyle Books, priced £25.