Hi there

I am a newbie on here so I hope I am in the right place!
I have been making Cupcakes for a while and I have amazing recipes for these and can manage them fine, but when it comes to bigger cakes I struggle! I have a really good choc cake recipe I use and a good victoria sponge recipe but what do I use for a Birthday cake?!
Is it a maderia cake or a victoria sponge cake people use?? I have tried the maderia for a 8" square cake, but was really dense and stodgy. I have also tried my vanilla cupcake recipe but obviously upping the ingredients but still it was stodgy. How can I make a bigger cake, light and spongy??

If anyone can help me that would be fantastic, or at least point me in the right direction.

Thank you in advance

well there's a bit of a language difference-- i never make madeira nor victoria sponge but for light and fluffy i love sylvia weinstock's yellow cake recipe--and it's all in cups rather than weight

it comes out almost white because i leave off a couple egg yolks but you can add them in too and it's still not truly a yellow color at all

then i use a quarter cup more cake flour than it calls for (i typo-ed the recipe when i copied it once and it works great)

and i do not whip the egg whites separately--i just add them info the beautifully creamed sugar and butter

http://homecooking.about.com/od/cakerecipes/r/blc13.htm

just an idea for you

You can use whatever type of mixture you like for a large cake but it might take a bit of adjusting to get completely right.  I use both vanilla sponge and Madeira recipes - it's entirely personal preference.

Are you trying to bake a large and deep cake (3" deep or more) all in one tin?  If so, try splitting the mixture between two tins and bake the cake in two layers, it cooks far more evenly.  Deep cakes are stodgy in the middle because they take so long to cook there, the sides cook relatively quickly but can almost be overcooked by the time the middle cooks.

What type of flour are you using - is it standard self raising flour?  I have found that replacing some of the self raising flour with cake/sponge flour (lower gluten content sold specifically for cake making) and cooking at a lower temperature prevents stodginess.