Can I Make The Chocolate Malteser Cake As A Loaf Cake?

Our answer

Nigella's Chocolate Malteser Cake is made by whisking eggs and sugar and then adding warm milk. This slightly unusual method makes a very light and tender sponge. The cake is normally baked in two 20cm (8-inch) cake tins. However, we are not sure that this type of cake is ideal for a loaf cake as it is very tender and may compress as it's sliced when it is a taller, single-layer cake. We would also note that the recipe has a slightly higher ratio of sugar to other ingredients than many sponge recipes and as loaf cakes take longer to bake than cake layers, there is a risk that the edges or corners of a loaf version will colour too much before the centre is baked through. So overall we would not particularly recommend this type of cake as a loaf cake.

If you still want to try then bear in mind that loaf tins vary a lot in size. We use a tin that has internal dimensions of 17cm (6 3/4 inches) long x 12cm (4 3/4 inches) wide x7.4cm (2 3/4 inches) high and with a volume of approximately 1.3 litres (5 1/4 cups). We think of this as a 450g (1-lb) loaf tin. A larger tin would be 23cm (9 inches long) x 12.5cm (5 inches) wide x 7.5cm (3 inches) high with a volume of around 1.9 litres (8 cups). Based on these dimenssions, you would likely need 1.5x the recipe for the smaller loaf tin and 2 x the recipe for the larger loaf tin. The tin should be lined with baking parchment, making sure that parchment comes up all sides of the loaf tin. The cakes are already baked at the slightly lower temperature of 170c/150c fan/325F, so we would not change this and the cakes are likely to take 40-50 minutes to bake for the smaller version and 50 minutes to 1 hour 10 minutes for the larger version. The cakes should be done when the top looks firm and springs back lightly when pressed and a cake tester inserted into the centre comes out clean. And please note that as we have not tried the cake in loaf form, we are unable to guarantee the results.