British songstress cutting Hypatia’s cake (9)
I believe the answer is:
madeleine
'cake' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'british songstress cutting hypatia's' is the wordplay.
'british songstress' becomes 'adele' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'cutting' means one lot of letters goes inside another (some letters cut their way into a word).
'hypatia's' becomes 'mine' (where the crossword setter is 'Hypatia').
'adele' placed into 'mine' is 'MADELEINE'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for madeleine that I've seen before include "Item on sweet menu" , "Small sponge cake" , "Woman" .)