Classic Madeira Cake (Lemon Butter Cake)
A firm, close-textured lemon butter cake with the traditional domed and cracked top: the kind of plain, honest cake that keeps for days and is at its best with a cup of tea.
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Madeira cake is the plain, dependable butter cake that sits behind a hundred fancier bakes. There is no icing, no filling and no fuss: just butter, sugar, eggs, flour and lemon, beaten together and baked long and slow until the top domes and splits down the middle. That crack is not a fault. It is the sign you have made the cake correctly, and it is the easiest way to tell a Madeira from a lighter sponge.
Despite the name, the cake has nothing to do with the island of Madeira. It was baked in Victorian England to serve alongside a glass of Madeira, the fortified wine, and the name stuck to the cake rather than the drink. It travelled out to New Zealand kitchens as one of those keeping cakes that lives in the tin and gets sliced for morning tea, lunchboxes and unexpected visitors. If you have made our classic pavlova, this is its opposite in every way: dense where the pavlova is airy, and made to last rather than eaten the same day.
Ingredients
The cake
- 200 g butter, softened
- 200 g caster sugar (about 1 cup)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- zest of 1 lemon, finely grated
- 3 large eggs, at room temperature
- 250 g plain flour (about 2 cups)
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- 2 tbsp milk, if needed
To finish (optional)
- a few strips candied lemon peel
Method
- Heat the oven and line the tin. Set the oven to 160°C (fan 145°C). Grease and line a 20×10 cm loaf tin, or a deep 18 cm round tin, with baking paper. A moderate oven is the whole point of a Madeira: it cooks the close crumb through without drying the edges.
- Cream the butter and sugar. Beat the softened butter, caster sugar, vanilla and lemon zest for three to four minutes, until pale and fluffy. This is where the fine, even crumb comes from, so do not rush it.
- Add the eggs one at a time. Beat in the eggs one at a time, adding a spoonful of the measured flour with each. The flour steadies the mixture and stops it curdling, which would give you a heavier cake.
- Fold in the flour. Sift the remaining flour and baking powder over the batter and fold it in gently with a metal spoon. Fold in the lemon juice. If the batter is stiff rather than a slow dropping consistency, loosen it with the milk.
- Fill the tin and start baking. Spoon the batter into the tin and level the top. Bake for 25 minutes without opening the door, so the surface can set and begin to dome.
- Add the peel and finish baking. If using candied peel, lay it on top now, once a skin has formed so it does not sink. Bake for a further 25 to 35 minutes, until the top is domed and cracked and a skewer comes out clean.
- Cool before slicing. Cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then lift out onto a rack to cool completely. Slice with a serrated knife once cold, when the close crumb holds together cleanly.
- Madeira uses a little more flour than a pound cake, which is what gives it that sturdier, drier crumb. Measure the flour by weight if you can, so the balance stays right.
- Have the butter and eggs at room temperature. Cold eggs are the most common cause of a curdled batter and a dense cake.
- The dome and central crack are correct. If the top stays flat, the oven is likely too hot or the batter too loose.
- For a plainer, more traditional cake, leave out the lemon and use only vanilla. For more lift, swap in self-raising flour and drop the baking powder.
- Wrapped airtight, the cake keeps at room temperature for four to five days, and actually improves after the first day. It also freezes well for up to three months.
Once you are comfortable with the creaming method here, the same technique carries straight over to our melting moments, where softened butter beaten until pale gives that short, tender crumb. For more on how we test and write these recipes, see our editorial and AI policy, or browse the rest of the collection on the home page.
Sources & references
Background reading used while developing and verifying this recipe. Quantities and timings were confirmed by our own kitchen testing.
- Nigella Lawson, My Mother-In-Law's Madeira Cake, for the traditional creaming method and lemon flavouring.
- Mary Berry, on the domed and cracked top as the mark of a correctly baked Madeira.
- Wikipedia, Madeira cake, for the origin of the name and its link to Madeira wine.
- Learning and Yearning and ChefsBliss, on the flour and fat differences between Madeira and pound cake.
- New Zealand home-baking guidance on storing and freezing butter-based cakes.
