Mum’s Victoria sponge recipe is the one she used for as long as I can remember. In truth, most Victoria Sponge recipes look suspiciously similar. I suspect it’s the same recipe used by every 1980s British housewife, with only the variations across the country being the filling.
Victoria sponge is a British classic. If anything, it’s the only cake most people can cook – including me. I don’t eat or bake much cake – I have more of a savoury tooth. But I do like a Victoria Sponge. It reminds me of my childhood, and it reminds me of my mum, who I baked this with several times. She could always rustle up a Victoria sponge at a moment’s notice, and she made a point of keeping one in the freezer at all times for emergencies.
This recipe is made up of the usual basic sponge, but filled with raspberry jam (rather than the usual strawberry), and a good helping of butter icing (rather than cream). If you’re going to blow your calories on a cake, you may as well go for it and enjoy that lovely crunchy texture that the butter icing gives a nice fluffy cake.
The recipe itself is fairly straightforward, but mum still had some tips to make it a bit easier to get a good result:
- The oven will have hot spots – swap the baking trays around half way through so one doesn’t cook faster than the other.
- Start checking for doneness after about 20 mins in case the oven is cooking hotter than the oven you are used to.
- If you want the cake to be even, use a large bread knife to level off the top of the cake.
- Wait till the cake has cooled before adding the filling.
- No matter how much you mess it up, it will still taste nice – dont admit your mistakes to anyone you share it with!
Don’t eat it all at once!
Mum’s Victoria sponge
Equipment
- 2 X 20cm/ 8" cake tins
- Baking paper
- Stand mixer
- Wire cooling rack
- Spatula
- – sieve
- – palette knife
Ingredients
Cake Mix
- 225 grams caster sugar
- 225 grams unsalted butter (softened)
- 4 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla essence
- 225 grams self raising flour (sieved)
- raspberry jam ((enough to cover the sponge to your liking))
Butter Icing
- 140 grams unsalted butter (softened)
- 280 grams icing sugar (sieved)
- 1 tsp vanilla essence
Instructions
Cake Mix
- Preheat oven to 170°C.
- Butter pans (use a bit of grease proof paper) and line the bottoms with baking paper.
- Add vanilla essence to eggs and whisk.
- Mix caster sugar and butter until smooth.
- Add flour and eggs in equal parts, bit by bit and whisk until smooth. * Add equal parts, and mix straight away to stop mix curdling.
- Divide the mix equally between the two tins.
- Bake in pre-heated oven for 25 mins – it’s done when the top of the cake is golden brown and springs back after pressing.
- Run palette knive around the edge of tins and and turn out the cakes and let them cool on a rack.
Butter Icing
- Soften butter with spoon, gradually add icing sugar and work in with spoon until desired taste/ consistency achieved.
Assembly
- Once the two sponges have cooled completely, choose which one has the best shape to go on top.
- Trim the top of the other sponge to make it flat, and cover it liberally with the raspberry jam.
- Cover the jam with a layer of the butter icing (you probably wont need the full amount) and place the top sponge on top.
- Sieve some icing sugar on the top of the cake and serve.
