When I recently made the Oopsy Daisy Cake for Baked Sunday Mornings, I asked my friend Dorothy if she wanted to come over for dessert and she readily agreed. But I knew that I needed to have a non-chocolate dessert available as well. Dorothy's older son Alexander has never liked chocolate, and her younger son Liam -- who used to love the stuff -- has recently followed his brother's lead and gone on a chocolate strike. Because Dorothy was also bringing her niece, nephew, and sister-in-law who were visiting from London, I thought it would be fitting to make a classic English dessert: the Victoria Sponge. Named after Queen Victoria, the cake is two layers of sponge filled with jam and whipped cream.
This is the third cake I've made from Rachel Allen's cookbook Cake, and I'm beginning to think they're all just variations on the same theme. Like the Coffee Mascarpone Cake and the Strawberry White Chocolate Cake, the Victoria sponge batter also calls for 175g butter, 175g sugar, and 175g flour. It has only three additional ingredients: eggs, baking powder, and milk. I also added a little salt. Allen's recipes don't call for salt as such, but Dorothy's sister-in-law -- who is Irish and whom I assume is typical of Allen's core audience -- told me that she would interpret the "butter" in Allen's recipe to mean salted butter and I always bake with unsalted.
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You bake the batter in two 7-inch pans; I purchased a couple of 7-inch pans after having to substitute smaller pans for Allen's coffee mascarpone cake recipe. I leveled my cakes before filling them with strawberry jam and whipped cream, and I flipped over the top layer so that the cut side faced the filling. With a little dusting of powdered sugar, you couldn't tell that the top of the cake was really the bottom side of a cake layer.
This cake was very cute and I really liked the small 7-inch size. But when I cut the sponge cake to serve it, the fluffy cloud of whipped cream squished out to create a huge mess. I found it was a bit neater if I used a serrated knife to gently saw through the cake with one hand while trying to hold up the top cake layer with the other, but still -- I'm not quite sure how you can get tidy slices (and that's why there's no photo of a slice of cake with this post). I would be tempted to cut the cake first and fill each piece individually after it's already sliced, but that seems like cheating and would also deprive you of the ability to present the whole filled cake, with all of its charming beauty.
I thought the cake was quite tasty, although the jam and whipped cream were necessary -- the cake itself is a bit dry and didn't have a lot of flavor. It reminded me of the base of a strawberry shortcake, which tends to be mundane but can still create a special dessert when combined with fruit and whipped cream. I didn't add any sugar to my whipped cream, and I thought the sweetness level on the overall dessert was perfect.
Most importantly, Alexander and Liam both voiced their enthusiastic approval (these kids don't lie when it comes to baked goods!) and happily ate their Victoria sponge while everyone else ate milk chocolate-peanut butter oopsy daisy cake. I consider that a success!
Recipe: "Victoria Sponge" from Cake by Rachel Allen, recipe available here.
This is the third cake I've made from Rachel Allen's cookbook Cake, and I'm beginning to think they're all just variations on the same theme. Like the Coffee Mascarpone Cake and the Strawberry White Chocolate Cake, the Victoria sponge batter also calls for 175g butter, 175g sugar, and 175g flour. It has only three additional ingredients: eggs, baking powder, and milk. I also added a little salt. Allen's recipes don't call for salt as such, but Dorothy's sister-in-law -- who is Irish and whom I assume is typical of Allen's core audience -- told me that she would interpret the "butter" in Allen's recipe to mean salted butter and I always bake with unsalted.
.JPG)
This cake was very cute and I really liked the small 7-inch size. But when I cut the sponge cake to serve it, the fluffy cloud of whipped cream squished out to create a huge mess. I found it was a bit neater if I used a serrated knife to gently saw through the cake with one hand while trying to hold up the top cake layer with the other, but still -- I'm not quite sure how you can get tidy slices (and that's why there's no photo of a slice of cake with this post). I would be tempted to cut the cake first and fill each piece individually after it's already sliced, but that seems like cheating and would also deprive you of the ability to present the whole filled cake, with all of its charming beauty.
I thought the cake was quite tasty, although the jam and whipped cream were necessary -- the cake itself is a bit dry and didn't have a lot of flavor. It reminded me of the base of a strawberry shortcake, which tends to be mundane but can still create a special dessert when combined with fruit and whipped cream. I didn't add any sugar to my whipped cream, and I thought the sweetness level on the overall dessert was perfect.
Most importantly, Alexander and Liam both voiced their enthusiastic approval (these kids don't lie when it comes to baked goods!) and happily ate their Victoria sponge while everyone else ate milk chocolate-peanut butter oopsy daisy cake. I consider that a success!
Recipe: "Victoria Sponge" from Cake by Rachel Allen, recipe available here.
Comments
Fresh cream is a modern addition. It wouldn't have been used in the days before widespread refrigeration, which was relatively late in the UK - it was the 1950s before many working class people bought fridges.
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