Sad but True

Related to the Madeira, which is still work in progress, is this Lemon and Thyme cake from the Hummingbird Bakery book Cake Days. Very delicious too, at the edges ...

For I made two errors in baking this, the first of which was having run out of plain flour I used self-raising but still added baking powder. That said, I would have expected it to have collapsed on top rather than in the middle. The second error, evident at the edges of the hole, is that the cake is undercooked ('sad').

Worth another try, if only because the book contains a number of variations on the basic method. It is always worth reading around recipes to see what can be changed as the mood takes you.

M'dear Madeira

A first attempt at Madeira cake using Mary Berry's Baking Bible (BBC, 2009). I don't want this to turn into Julie and Julia, making every recipe in the book and charting it. What I do want to do is to bring together the best of the recipes in the books I own and having decided on the underlying principles, see what I can do next.

Given that this is my first post in a long while, don't hold your breath for the next instalment of this search!