Baking Time for Black Cake

Our answer

Nigella's Black Cake recipe (from Domestic Goddess) is based on Laurie Colwin's recipe, though has some slight alterations. One of these is that Nigella uses a baking method that is commonly used with rich fruit cakes - starting the cake at one temperature and then lowering the oven temperature after a certain time. For dense fruit cakes this is usually preferable as it helps the cake to cook through and reduces the risk of the top and edges burning.

We have not had any problems with Nigella's baking time for the Black Cake but you can certainly use whichever baking method you feel is more appropriate. We would however mention that there was an error in some of the earlier editions of Domestic Goddess. The ingredients list omits the soaked fruit mixture, so make sure that you use it in step 2 of the method.