Victoria Sponge

Hi everyone,

I treated myself the other week to a new cookery book and bought this one from Sainsburys...

Not on;y was Jo a winner of The Great British Bake Off, she also only lives about 5 miles from me!

I don't know about you but I love a good old plain Victoria Spong. I made mine using the recipe from this book, which you can read in a moment. I happily followed the recipe and this was the result ...

I used jam and buttercream to fill and top the cake and it was absolutely delicious!
You can visit Jo's blog here

So here is the recipe:

Serves 8

200g self raising flour
1tsp baking powder
200g caster sugar
200g margarine, at room temperature
4 large eggs, beaten
1 large egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste

Filling:
4tbsp strawberry jam
2tbsp caster sugar

You will need 2 x 20cm sandwich tins

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Butter and line the base of each cake tin with a disc of buttered baking parchment.

Tip all of the cake ingredients into the bowl of a free-standing mixer and beat for 2 minutes until smooth. If you don't have a free-standing machine you can use an electric hand held mixer.

Divide the batter evenly between the prepared tineand spread level using a palette knife. Bake on the middle shelf of the preheated oven for about 25-30 minutes or until golden, well risen and a skewer inserted comes out clean.

Remove from the oven and carefully turn the cakes out of the tins, peel off the parchment and leave to cool on wire racks.

Place one of the cold cakes on a serving plate, right side up, and spread with jam (and buttercream if using). Top with the second cake and sprinkle caster sugar to serve.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Ally
xx