Victoria Sponge Cake

 


It was my wonderful friend Gus' birthday at the beginning of September. I offered to make him a birthday cake and he requested a classic Victoria Sponge with strawberry jam and buttercream. My go-to Victoria Sponge recipe is the classic River Cottage recipe. The trick is to weigh your eggs and then match your butter, flour and sugar to the same value. 

Ingredients for the cake: 
4 eggs 
Self raising flour 
A pinch of salt 
Caster Sugar 
Butter, softened 
1 tsp vanilla extract 
To decorate: 
Strawberry jam
8 fresh strawberries 
300g icing sugar 
150g butter, softened

Method:
1. Heat the oven to 180 fan. Lightly grease and line two 20cm cake tins. 
2. Weigh the eggs in the their shells and then weigh out the same amount of sugar, butter and flour. Beat the butter until creamy, then add the sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add 1 tbsp of your flour with your last egg to prevent the mixture curdling. Add the vanilla extract then gently fold in the rest of the flour and salt. Check the consistency of the mixture by scooping up a spoonful of the mixture and hold it above the bowl. If easily drops off the spoon, it's just right. If it stubbornly sticks to the spoon, add a dash of milk to loosen the mixture. 
3. Divide the batter between the two tins and bake for 25-30 minutes until a tester comes out clean. Leave to cool completely before taking them out of the tins. 
4. To make the buttercream, beat the butter until very soft. Then slowly add the icing sugar until the buttercream comes together. 
5. To assemble, put one of the cakes on a plate. Cover the generously with strawberry jam. Pipe the buttercream on top and sandwich the second cake on top. Pipe 8 splodges of buttercream on top of the cake and place a whole strawberry on top. Gently dust a bit more icing sugar and serve. 

And there you are! I ended up having to make two cakes as I was worried that I'd accidentally put a lot more than a pinch of salt in the first mixture. So I delivered one cake to Gus and kept one for myself and my family! Delicious! 

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