sewhungryhippie: Make / Bake a Victoria Sponge Cake

All you need is sugar, flour, butter, eggs, and baking powder. Jam if you like, cream if you desire.

It's so easy, really, truly, easy. (Recipe to follow below.)

I borrowed the recipe from this lovely book:

The Great British Book of Baking

(Available on amazon for a song.)

I also checked the recipe against Granny's Favorites Cook book, just to be sure.

They were identical.

I did a run through on 6/13 and was so glad I did...it ended up being flatter than a pancake because I forgot to use "self raising" flour....I googled it, and all I needed to do was add baking powder. Whew!

Fresh, real raspberries were added to raspberry jam and put it in the middle like this:

A sprinkling of icing sugar would have been lovely-making it less rich. I like it like this in high summer. However....

I wanted it to be extra decadent, so I whipped loads of cream and topped it in the middle, and all over the outside with it.

It's THREE lush layers of sponge, jam, and cream.

Ingredients:

3 eggs (large)

1 cup sugar

1 cup flour

1 1/4 tsp baking powder

1 cup butter (2 sticks for American butter)

Beat the eggs in a separate bowl. Put the butter and sugar together and whisk with a machine until fluffy and light in color. Add the eggs a little at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the baking powder to the flour, pour all at once into the butter mixture and mix with a spatula or wooden spoon. (Not sure why it says that, but okay.)

Now pour your batter into a cake tin that is lined with wax paper. Bake at 180 C for 22 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. This batch only gives me one layer, because I wanted a thicker cake and I have 9 inch cake tins. So, if you're using 8 inch tins, it might be enough for two layers.

The book said it was enough for two, but again, I wanted a very tall cake.

Add fresh berries to your jam if you like. The book said 3 tbsp jam, but I used about 1/4 cup.

Another reason to cover it with cream---less than perfect cake layers. Mine are never perfect, much to my consternation.

Whip the heavy cream (if using) for about 4 minutes with your machine. It happens all of a sudden-so watch it.

Once it's thick, spread it on with a spatula.

Whoop there it is!

AND...

I made a new pattern today for an apron. I'm thinking of making it a little longer, adding pockets, and fixing the bust line a bit so there is no puckering at the side. I hope to offer this pattern soon for download, if I can figure out the software... :/