Muffins Into Cake

Our answer

Muffin recipes are slightly different to cake and cupcake recipes as they contain more liquid and less fat than a standard sponge recipe. They are more similar to "quick breads", which are loaves that are raised with bicarbonate of soda and baking powder rather than yeast. So if you are going to convert a recipe it may be best to bake the cake as a loaf cake than a round cake. Also muffin recipes tend to rise in the centre quite a lot, which looks better in loaf form. Muffins are baked on a fairly high heat, so for a larger loaf cake you would need to reduce the oven temperature.

Nigella's Christmas Morning Muffins (from NIGELLA CHRISTMAS) yields 12 muffins and we suspect that this would be enough for a small (500g/1-pound) loaf pan with a capacity of around 1 litre/4 cups. The batter should come about two-thirds of the way up the sides of the pan. We would suggest reducing the oven temperature to 180c/350F and baking the loaf for around 45 minutes, though it would be a good idea to start checking after 40 minutes. A cake tester inserted into the centre should come out clean when the loaf is baked. However as we have not tried the muffins in this form we cannot guarantee the results. You may also like to try a loaf of Nigella's Banana Bread.