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.
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| 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.
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| The assembled Victoria Sandwich |
Next Week's Baking Challenge:
Brandy Snap Biscuits
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