Can I make a smaller version of this cake recipe?

For my upcoming birthday, I was thinking about baking a walnut and ginger cake similar to one I had a slice of years ago at a monestary in Upper Michigan. [Isn't that where everyone goes for cake?] The cake recipe that looks most like what I enjoyed up there can be found on-line here.

My question to you more-expert bakers: Can I make a 1/2 version of this recipe and bake it in a smaller pan? How would this affect the baking time? The original is intended to be baked in a 12 cup bundt pan; would an 8X4 loaf pan work for a 1/2 batch? Since the cake is supposed to be soaked in Madeira for a few days, should I not worry about baking it a bit too much and it becoming dry, since it'll just soak up more wine that way?

Or, I could just bake the whole thing and invite everyone over....

I look forward to your experience and advice.

Giovanna

Giovanna wrote:For my upcoming birthday, I was thinking about baking a walnut and ginger cake similar to one I had a slice of years ago at a monestary in Upper Michigan. [Isn't that where everyone goes for cake?]

Giovanna, was it this monestary? Their (bourbon soaked) cakes are indeed fantastic. I am a fan of the abbey cake, but the walnut ginger sounds fantastic.

Kristen

kl5 wrote:Giovanna, was it this monestary? Their (bourbon soaked) cakes are indeed fantastic. I am a fan of the abbey cake, but the walnut ginger sounds fantastic.

Kristen

Yep. The very one. You can see that they charge $40 for the cake. I think my rates will be much more reasonable.

Depending on the rate I charge myself for labor.

Giovanna

I'm very curious about the answer here, because as we're a family of three, I don't like to make a whole 9" layer cake, because...well, we'd eat it. I bought a cute little cheapie Wilton springform pan that's 6" (I think 4-cup capacity) across and I often do a half-batch in there, but timing's difficult because the batter is so much deeper than in a regular pan.

At any rate, halving your 12-cup recipe should give you the correct capacity for a loaf pan, but you're losing the hole in the middle which should also affect timing. Apparently there are 6-cup bundt pans out there...
I did find this website that discusses cake pan capacity, but not recipe scaling.

This is a crazy thought, but I've seen it done with rectangular cake pans. Could you make half a bundt cake by using foil to make a dividing wall halfway across each side? Without looking at your recipe, I gather these are somewhere in the fruit cake category, which means the dough would be pretty thick and might be fairly easy to contain. That way you wouldn't have to worry about the shape of the pan as an additional factor.

Or, another idea. How about baking half the recipe as cupcakes? Then it just makes however many it makes.