Week 1: Victoria Sandwich - the finished product

I decided to make my Victoria Sandwich this morning while my 29 week old son had his nap. Before I began I felt excited that I was about to make the first recipe of my baking challenge but wondered if I really would be able to produce the "perfect sponge" as my recipe promised.
I found that it really paid to read the recipe the day before so that I knew to do things like get the butter and eggs to room temperature before I started to make the cake.

The Cake Mixture

To ensure that my butter would be at room temperature I had got it out of the fridge 3 hours before I began the cake. However when I came to cream the butter with my electric hand mixer it was not soft enough and the butter stuck to the beater in one big clump. Feeling rather stressed that things were not going well after only having just started, I gave up with the electric mixer and reverted to beating the butter with a metal spoon. After several minutes of continuous beating and arm ache the butter finally began to represent the smooth consistency required by the recipe.
Once I had added the caster sugar to the creamed butter I used the electric hand mixer to beat the mixture for 3-4 minutes as instructed by the book. The problem with an electric hand mixer is that it does tend to send the ingredients flying out of the bowl so by the time I had finished creaming the butter and sugar together my small kitchen looked like a whirlwind had passed through it with mixture splattered all over the place.
The next stage was to add my beaten egg and vanilla essence to the creamed mixture. The recipe only allowed me to add 1 tablespoon of the beaten egg at a time into the creamed mixture. This was a very long process seeing as I had 4 eggs worth to add and the recipe told me to beat my cake mixture well after every addition.
Once I had finally finished the very arduous task of egg spooning I found myself thinking that for a cake that appears so simple there is certainly alot of work that goes into its creation. I'm not 100% sure if I think its really worth it. But then a lover of Victoria Sandwich cakes may disagree with me.
By the time the mixture is finally in the sandwich pan ready to go into the oven I feel a sense of jubilation that I have survived it through the many stages of creating  this cake mixture without too many glitches.
The recipe instructed me to cook the sponge for 25 minutes but I found I needed an extra 5 minutes in the oven to get the cake to go a nice golden colour.
Having a pan with a pop-up base made getting the cake out of the pan so easy and more importantly in one place. Once I had cooked both  sponge layers I was ready to assemble and taste my cake.

The baked sponge layers

The Verdict

I found my sponge to have a very good light texture but it lacked any real taste.  Even though the 2 sponges had Raspberry jam between them I really wished that there had also been a good thick layer of butter icing. I asked my husband to give me his opinion and he agreed with me that my sponge lacked taste. In his exact words he said "the cake has a subtle taste but then that's what sponge cakes are like". Hummm..........I was not sure whether this was a compliment or not!
I feel I have succeeded in creating a Victoria Sandwich but this recipe has not in any way swayed my opinion of this cake. I will not be adding the Victoria Sandwich to my list of favourites and my allegiance still firmly lies with the fruit cakes of the baking world.

The assembled Victoria Sandwich

Next Week's Baking Challenge:

Brandy Snap Biscuits

Week 1 - Cakes: Victoria Sandwich

As a lover of fruit and chocolate cake I have always turned my nose up in disdain at a Victoria Sandwich declaring it boring and tasteless. In fact the last time I remember making a sponge cake was when I was a child and I constructed a birthday cake made of 4 sponge layers. Ironic then that the first thing I have to bake is a Victoria Sandwich. The "How To Bake" book promises me that its recipe will give me the "perfect" sandwich and I am hoping it will sway my opinion of this traditional afternoon tea cake.
I did not even own a sandwich pan so my first task was to go out yesterday and buy a sandwich pan. I am now the proud owner of a Masterclass sandwich pan which has a 20 year guarantee and a 5 year non-stick life.
The recipe book does say that I will need 2 sandwich pans but I decided on quality over quantity as my Masterclass pan was £8.49. With only one pan the baking time of my sponge cake will be doubled but I'm quite confident that the end result will still be good.
I went for this pan over cheaper versions because it has a pop-up base which I prefer. I don't have fond memories of baking with cake tins that weren't un-clip or pop-up as normally half of my cake would stay in the tin when I tried to get it out.
I am now waiting for my shopping to be delivered tomorrow evening and then I will have the ingredients to begin my Victoria Sandwich cake.

My Baking Challenge

Home made cakes, biscuits and bread have been my passion since I was a young girl and I am happiest when I am buzzing round the kitchen whipping up an exciting creation. I feel that I have mastered a range of recipes but recently I found that I was getting rather bored of baking the same things. 

To help me expand my baking skills I have enlisted the help of the book: 

The Great British Bake Off - How To Bake

I fell in love with this book when I saw the copy my mother owned and after reading through the many recipes wanted to immediately rush home and start baking all of the delicious cakes, puddings and biscuits. 

My Challenge:

The challenge I have set myself is to make every single recipe from the How To Bake book. Being a full-time mum I will only manage to do one recipe per week.

The book is split into the following chapters:

• Cakes
• Biscuits and Teatime Treats
• Bread
• Pies and Savoury Pastry
• Tarts and Sweet Pastry
• Patisserie
• Puddings and Desserts
• Celebration Cakes

So that my poor husband is not subjected to weeks of continuous puddings and pies, I will pick a recipe per week from each chapter. So week 1 will be a cake recipe, week 2 a biscuit recipe, week 3 a bread recipe and so on. 

Rules:

1. One recipe per week.
2. A different recipe per week. I am not allowed to repeat a recipe even if it turns into a complete disaster.  
3. The recipe must be followed to the letter and the ingredients can't be substituted for low-fat alternatives. 

I am very excited about starting the challenge but at the same time my stomach churns at the enormity of what I have set myself as most things in the book I have never made before.

So all that is left to say is "LET THE BAKING BEGIN!!!!".