Rectangular Chocolate Fudge Cake

Asked by 2boystobakefor. Answered on 6th June 2015

Full question

Hi! I was wondering if you could tell me how to convert Nigella's chocolate Fudge Cake for a rectangular 13 x 9 inch tin? My soon to be 5 year old really only wants this recipe for his birthday cake (understandable!) and I need to use a rectangular tin.

Our answer

Nigella's Chocolate Fudge Cake (from Nigella Bites and on the Nigella website) is a popular cake and is baked in 2 layers in 20cm/8-inch round cake pans. Converting cakes can be tricky but in this case a cake in a 20cm/8-inch round cake pan can also be baked in an 18cm/7-inch square pan. Two 23cm/7-inch square pans are the equivalent of a 7 x 14 inch rectangular pan which is pretty much the same as a 9 x 13 inch rectangular pan.

So you would need just the single recipe of the Chocolate Fudge Cake to bake in the rectangular pan for a rectangular single layer cake. The oven temperature will be the same at 180c/350F and usually a 9 x 13 inch rectangular cake takes 45-55 minutes to bake. To check the cake is done it should be risen, firm to the touch, shrinking away slightly from the sides of the pan and a cake tester inserted into the centre comes out clean. However we would like to emphasise that we have not tested the cake in this form ourselves so cannot guarantee the results.