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Victoria Sponge Cake

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The much loved home made Victoria Sponge Cake. Shop brought cakes are great time savers and I have been known to buy this cake but, when it went up to £4 for a tiny one. I decided enough was enough! A room filled with the aroma of cake mix is one of my fondest childhood memories — sitting patiently waiting for the mixing bowl to be emptied, so I could attempt to find bits of cake batter left behind for my tiny hand to clean every last trace from the bowl. Victoria Sponge Cake is a true classic, and there's a reason for that — it's delicious! It's un-complicated to make and once you've done it you'll make it time after time ;-) I use a food mixer but this can easily be made by hand.

Now! I was watching my favourite chef James Martin rustle up one of these beauties, made with strawberry jam as I have done in this recipe, however, as an alternative to strawberry jam he reckoned that if you fancy a change you can also make an apple version of Victoria Sponge Cake. No peeling and coring of apples required. No! All he used was a jar of bramley apple sauce, the exact same type as you serve up with your roast pork dinner. I thought I've have try that and low and behold, the results were so much better than than I ever imagined, you just have to try it, it's a revalation in cake making!!! I've included some pictures (pretty dodgy picutures actually!) of the results of this adventure at the end of this recipe. The ingredients and method are exactly the same for jam or apple, except the apple sauce of course!

Oh! And the Nutty bonus — the jar of bramley apple sauce cost me £0.50 where as one cooking apple cost me £1.20! Seriously!

Click the Method tab below to see a step by step guide on how to make Victoria Sponge Cake with pictures.

victoria sponge cake and slice

ingredients

Here's what you need :¬P

serves slices of various sizes!

for the cake batter

  • 175g sugar*
  • 175g butter cubed*
  • 3 eggs
  • 1 Tblsp baking powder
  • 175g plain flour*
  • tsp vanilla essence

So if ever ya want to make a cake 3 x egg = 3 x 175g each of butter, sugar & flour — See simple!

to assemble the cake

  • 200g strawberry jam
  • 100g Extra thick double cream
  • Fresh strawberries - optional
  • 1/2 tsp icing sugar

*I live in an apartment so having 20 different types of sugar is an issue. I put my granulated sugar into my blender and blitz it & Hey presto Caster sugar! I use salted butter as it makes the cake less sweet who knew ;-) Similar with flour, I only have plain & strong bread flour so I simply add baking powder to my plain flour. It's never failed me so, hey ho!

method

Now listen carefully this is not a shop brought cake in a box all put together by machines. This is home-made and that's exactly what it should look like. So please do not stress if one sponge is a bit wonky. Or heaven forbid you can not get the jam to form a prefect layer. Even if your cream starts to drip down onto the plate smile make tea and say to yourself — I made that and it's perfect! Where's the forks? You're not on Bake off and I'm quite sure "Mary Berry" would agree it's perfect you made it. She could possible be critical, but I take that on the chin :¬)

Prepare all your ingredients:

ingredients
ingredients
  1. Weigh all your ingredients out
  2. Add sugar to a bowl or blender
  3. Add butter & mix to cream together
  4. Add the eggs & mix together*

*do not worry if it appears to split, our flour will fix that

  1. Add baking powder & flour
  2. Blend or whisk into a smooth batter
  3. Grease two 18cm cake tins
  4. Line the bases with baking paper
  5. Pre-heat your oven to 180c
  6. Tip your cake mixture into the two tins*

*weigh each to ensure they are even

  1. Smooth the mix as best you can
  2. Put the cake tins onto a baking tray
  3. Put into the pre-heated oven for 25 mins
  4. Get a wire cooling rack ready near to the oven
  5. Put your jam into a bowl & stir through so it's easier to spread
  6. Whisk your double cream to just stiff & put into the fridge
  7. Take your cakes out test for doneness*

*Take a wooden skewer put into the center of the cake if it comes out clean your cakes cooked

  1. Set your cakes onto the cooling rack allow to get completely cold
  2. Once cold choose the best for the top
  3. Place the other onto a serving dish spread with Jam*

*Or, use bramley apple sauce for a completely delicious alternative!

spread jam onto the base
sponge and jam
  1. Now spread or pipe with cream
spread cream onto the jam
sponge jam and cream
  1. Place the top over onto the base

If your Victoria Sponge Cake is for a special occasion take some extra cream and pipe around the edge of the top and decorate with fresh strawberries. Your cake's going to have one day shelf life if you add fresh fruit, so only do this if it's going to be finished on the day. If you put the fruit into a fridge it's going to leach its juice, spoil your cake & lose its flavour & just be dreadful. Strawberries are outta season as I write this so, no to the strawberries! Also, no to the piping around the edge. My cake my way — some times basic's a good thing.

  1. Get a fine sieve lightly dust the top with icing sugar
dust with icing sugar
victoria sponge cake 2
  1. Store in an air tight tin and after an hour or so put in the fridge
victoria sponge cake slice
victoria sponge slice

Serve to a good friend with a cup of tea and a cake fork :-0

To switch this up, try using a jar of not too sweet bramley apple sauce instead of strawberry jam. You will not be disappointed I promise :¬)

bramley apple victoria sponge
bramley apple cake sliced 02
bramley apple victoria sponge
bramley apple cake slice
just oozing deliciousness!