Victoria Sponge

My first taste of Victoria Sponge was in my former company - an expat colleague baked a whole cake for me cos, over a casual meal, I mentioned I never tasted one before.

That was the very first time anyone had commissioned a cake in my honor :-)

We had some special friendship... I recalled once he lent his company car to me when he went back to London for 1-month home leave, for obvious reason to put it to better use. But I naively drove to work. This simple but brainless act raised some eyebrowns and was very quickly escalated to the HR. I couldn't care less about what was said or rumoured, all I knew my poor colleague was asked to explain on his return...=p

Back to the sponge. Right after I left the company, I never had a chance to eat Victoria Sponge anymore. One, I had not come across one in a local confectionary. Two, I can't bake then.


I was elated to find this recipe in Aunty Yochana's site. That brought back some memories, and I decided to bake it right away!


Yep, I have made this into cupcakes cos it is easier to share around.

Also, with Halloween round the corner, i am using the H'ween cupcake liner to add the festivity, and to prepare for my S&SB.


Victoria Sponge is not complete without the raspberry filling. I filled it with tip 230 using the filling method here .


Then cover the hole with a pumpkin quinn. =p

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Ingredients:
180 gm. Butter
160 gm. sugar
3 nos. eggs
30 gm. milk
30 gm. dairy whip cream
1 tsp. vanilla essence
180 gm. Self raising flour
finely grated 1 lemon zest
60 gm. raspberry or strawberry jam
snow powder or icing sugar to sprinkle

Method:
(1) Cream butter and sugar until creamy and fluffy.
(2) Slowly add in beaten eggs, fresh milk and whip cream. Add in 1 Tbsp. flour if the mixture cuddles. Add in lemon zest.
(3) Add in flour and mix thoroughly.
(4) Pour into 2 nos. 8" round trays and bake at 175C for about 40 mins or till cooked.
(5) Remove tins from oven and set aside for 5 mins before removing from the tin.
(6) Let it cool, spread the jam on one of the cake and top up with the other piece of cake.
(7) Sprinkle snow powder on top and serve.

Some notes on this bake:

• If the batter cuddles, you will lose some air... to avoid this, make sure all your ingredients are brought out from the fridge well in advance. They should be at room temperature for an ideal bake.


• I do not have lemon at home, so I replace with orange zest which adds some tangy-ness.


• When baking into cupcake, the baking time is reduce to 25min. Check your oven 5min before and after for doneness. Over-baking will yield dry cake.


• Icing powder melts easily in our climate. Try to use snow powder. Else, only powder the icing over the cake just before serving.


• This batter will spread and level out itself when in the oven.

On the side note, i almost got a scare when i see the Chinese text on my whipping cream:

Haha, false alarm... it is made in France:
Well, better err on the safe side.

Before I part, let's pray for the victims of tainted milk in China... my heart goes out to them!