Sunday 12 July 2009

My Victoria Sandwich Cake

I love a bit of Victoria sandwich cake. Nothing too fancy or over the top, plastered in frosting or sprinkles. Just a slice of nice traditional cake.

First gather your ingredients together and preheat the oven to 180C (350F).

I used my simple sponge recipe for this cake.

I started with four eggs for a 8inch layer cake. The four eggs weighed 250grams exactly which almost never happens, but makes me very happy so I weighed out 250grams of butter, caster sugar and self raising flour.

Place all four ingredients into a large bowl and add one teaspoon of baking powder and one tablespoon of lemon juice which helps to break down the gluten in the flour and make the sponge lighter.




Using an electric hand whisk, beat the the ingredients until pale and fluffy which should take five minutes or so.




Divide the batter between two greased and lined 8 inch cake tins and bake for 25 - 30 minutes. Test the cakes by inserting a skewer into the centre of the cake, it should come out clean or with a couple of moist crumbs but not batter.




Allow the cakes to stand in the tins for a few minutes before turning out onto a wire rack and leaving to cool completely.



Once the cakes have cooled completely its time to assemble the cake.

Start by choosing which of the two cakes you like the look of best although it doesn't really matter, this is a plain snacking cake and not a fancy display piece, but still.

Take the other layer and place upside down on a cake plate (or just with the smoothest side facing up).




Now here's the thing. I like a bit of butter cream in my Victoria Sandwich but for a lot of people this would be complete sacrilege punishable by death.

But I'm hoping that the people who do know where I live, love me enough not to attack me on a dark alley on the way home over a bit of butter cream so I'm going to go ahead and add it. If you really can't stand the thought then by all means leave it out and skip straight to the fruit.



Spread on a good layer of strawberry or raspberry jam or by all means use fresh crushed fruit. You don't want the layer of jam to be too thick or the top layer will skite about all over the place when you try to cut it.




Then pop on the top layer and give it a little dusting of caster sugar, not icing sugar. It's the one thing I'm strict about.

And you're all done.




Well, nearly all done.




There you go. Now you're all done!



That's a mummy sized bite for anyone interested.

7 comments:

  1. That looks delicious! Even your batter looks gorgeous! :)

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  2. Oh My, I was just off to bed, and now I am starving!! What a fab cake.

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  3. hi could you do a victoria sandwich but three layered one if you had thinner cake slices if you know what I mean?

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  4. Your cake looks great. What do you line your tins with? I only usually line the bottom and grease the sides of mine but the sides of the cake break away!

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  5. The ones I used in the photos are leftover paper cake tin liners, just like really big cupcake paper cases but I found a great recipe for pan release by Kittencal on recipezaar which works with everything, even really sticky syrup cakes I've made and they just pop straight out of the tin;

    http://www.recipezaar.com/Pan-Release-Better-Than-Pam-Spray-Professional-Pan-Coating-78579

    If you're in the UK, I used Trex for the vegetable shortening and it honestly does keep for ages in an airtight tupperware box, though you can make it up as you need it with a tablespoon each of vegetable oil, shortening and plain flour. Plus you don't get that icky flour residue on the sides of the cake that normally happens from just greasing and flouring a pan.

    Hope this helps.

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  6. Thanks for that Leanne. I'll have to give it a try.

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  7. That looks delicious and I'm with you - I LOVE buttercream! Might have to make one tomorrow!

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Ah go on, sure you're here anyway.