Full question
I don’t own any loose-bottomed sandwich tins. For the Chocolate Malteser Cake, would it be better to use my solid cake pans, or springform ones — or should I just bite the bullet and buy loose-bottomed ones?
Our answer
Nigella's Chocolate Malteser Cake (from {FEAST](/books/feast)) is a sponge with a malted chocolate flavour. The cake is baked in two 20cm/8-inch cake pans. In the UK loose-bottomed sandwich pans are quite common, though less so elsewhere.
We would suggest using fixed-base cake pans if they are the same size. The cake is a fatless sponge based on a whisked egg and sugar mixture, so is slightly more delicate than a Victoria sponge and we would suggest that you line the base of the pans with baking parchment (parchment paper) and grease the sides of the pan very well with butter. Once the cakes have baked you can run a palette knife carefully between the sides of the pan and the edge of the cake, to release it and make unmoulding slightly easier. Springform pans are very deep and the high sides of the pan can affect the baking time.
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