victoria sponge cake

victoria sponge cake

• 28 Oct 2024

Making a Victoria Sponge cake has been on my to-do list for a while because there isn't one one in my recipe archive. I do have a recipe for the Flour and Stone Old Fashioned Vanilla Cake, which is a classic Victoria Sponge Cake just called by another name.

A Victoria Sponge cake is usually made with equal quantities of eggs, butter, sugar and flour loosened with a little milk. As an avid follower of Nicola Lamb I thought I'd try her version, which mixes things up a bit by adding a bit of cream and some egg yolks to the batter. The batter came together pretty easily but it diid look a little curdled. It baked up just fine though and the end result, sandwiched with cream and some home made rhubarb and raspberry jam, was simply delicious.

Here's the recipe for you which makes a 17cm layer cake. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C. If you'd like to make a larger Victoria Sponge Cake, please refer to Nicola's original recipe.

Nicola Lamb Victoria Sponge Cake
Cake 
135g unsalted butter, soft (20°C is great)
3g sea salt flakes
165g caster sugar
45g cream
2 whole eggs 
1 egg yolk 
1 tsp vanilla extract
60g whole milk
165g plain flour
10g baking powder (around 2½ tsp)
15g sugar for a crispy top

Filling 
200mls cream
1/3 cup berry jam
1 punnet berries

To decorate
Berries to decorate
Icing sugar

Method
Pre-heat the oven to 190°C, conventional. Grease and line 2 x 17cm tins. Set aside.

Cream the soft butter with salt and sugar for 2 minutes on medium speed using a stand mixer. This is enough for the butter and sugar to aerate slightly and become a little paler, but not so much that it is whipped. 

Mix together the cream, whole eggs, egg yolks, vanilla extract and milk in a large jug.

Sift together the plain flour and baking powder. Set aside. Starting with the liquid, alternate adding the liquid and dry ingredients into the creamed butter and sugar, in around three batches, scraping down as necessary. 

Divide the mixture between the two tins, around 315-335g per cake. Sprinkle one cake with the sugar. Place the tins on the centre rack and bake for 25 minutes at 190°C, conventional, then check if the sponge is golden and bouncy, and pulling away from the sides slightly. Bake for additional 5 minutes if it seems underbaked. Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then remove and cool completely on a rack.

Filling
Whip cream to very soft peaks, set aside.

Assembly
On the plain sponge, spread jam all over the base. Spoon 2/3 of the cream onto the jam layer and spread to the edges with the back of a spoon - leave a 1-inch border if you don't want it to splurge too much! Cover with berries. As a splurging insurance policy, you can pop your cake in the fridge or freezer to firm up the cream a bit. Place the sugared sponge on top. 

Just before serving, sprinkle with icing sugar, top with a splodge of cream and the extra berries. Keeps in the fridge for 3 days.

As expected it was absolutely delicious and I'm glad I put a small slice aside for  later because it disappeared pretty quickly.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian