Full question
This year we have more guests for Christmas so we would like to double the recipe for the holiday hot cake. I was thinking of putting it in a larger rectangular dish, but I wondered if this will cause it to bake unevenly? Is this why it is suggested to make in a circular pie dish?
I could put it in two separate pie dishes but it would be so much easier to put it all into one big dish.
Our answer
Nigella's Holiday Hot Cake With Eggnog Cream (from NIGELLA EXPRESS) is a self-saucing pudding cake, where the sauce ingredients are poured over the cake batter before baking. As the sponge bakes the sauce thickens and moves to the bottom of the dish. The Holiday Hot Cake is flavoured with seasonal spices and has a spiced butterscotch-like sauce.
A round pie dish is suggested as it was the dish used in testing, but the dessert should work just as well in a 20cm (8-inch) square dish. It is quite difficult to double the quantity, as a much larger pudding can take longer to bake and may need a lower oven temperature. We suspect that you could make a 1 1/2 quantity of the pudding and bake it in a 22 x 33cm (9 x 13-inch) rectabgular dish. The baking time is likely to be 40-45 minutes. Bake until the sponge is risen and firm to the touch in the centre. If you insert a cake tester into the centre of the sponge then it should come out clean or with a couple of damp crumbs attached and be careful not to insert it too deeply into the sponge, as you don't want to pick up any sauce on the cake tester. However, if you have a really large number of people then it is probably easier to bake two puddings. And please note that as we have have not tried the larger size ourselves, we are unable to guarantee the results.
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