A Conversation for Cake Recipes

Victoria Sandwich Cake

Post 1

J'au-æmne

Victoria Sandwiches are like sponge cakes, but they always have butter/margerine in, so they keep well, and in my opinion are nicer than a sponge.

The basic method is as follows:
Ingredients:
4oz of caster sugar
4oz of butter/margarine
2 eggs
4oz of self-raising flour, sifted

Preheat the oven to around 180 degrees C (or slightly hotter to start with), and grease two sandwich tins (flat shaped, round tins) with lard or butter, and sprinkle them with four.

Beat the sugar and butter together, until they look like whipped cream. (As you are using equal amounts of sugar and marg, it actually should look like cream rather than just a vague approximation that one gets in many recipes).

Beat in the eggs, one by one. To prevent curdling, you may want to add a sprinkling of flour with each egg - just a small amount, though.

(Flavourings should be added with the last egg - see below)

Then fold in the flour, making sure to do the bare minimum amount of work to get the flour mixed in properly. If you handle the mixture too much, the cake gets a 'hard' texture.

Split the mixture in half and put it into your greased tins. Bake for about 20 minutes - it's worth checking on them after about 18 minutes to see if they're ready, need to have the heat turned up, need to be switched round in the oven etc.

Use a thin skewer to test if the cakes are ready. Dip it into the cake, and if it comes out completely clean, the cakes are properly cooked.

Turn the cakes out onto wire racks to cool.

Filling - Butter Icing:
Butter icing is an easy way to fill your cake. The amount you make is up to personal taste. I tend to make the following amount just to fill the cake, but if you want to ice the top of the cake as well, you may want to make double the amount. If you don't want to ice the top of the cake, sprinkle some icing sugar on it instead.

Ingredients:
2oz margarine/butter
4oz icing sugar


beat the magerine with half of the icing sugar until creamlike. Then beat in the rest of the sugar and the flavouring (see below).

Turn one cake over so that the side which was in the tin is now facing up, and spread the icing over it. You don't need to be to careful to make it even, just be gentle so the icing doesn't get mixed up with crumbs. Then put the other cake on, not turned over.

Flavouring:

Victoria sandwich with no flavour is just... ...sweet. Here are some suggestions for flavouring.

Vanilla - add half a teaspoon of vanilla essence with the second egg; fill the cake with jam (rasperry), and add a few drops of vanilla essence to the icing.

Lemon (Same for lime or orange) - zest a fresh lemon, (either with a lemon zester, or use a grater on its finest side) and add to the mixture with the second egg, with a little lemon juice (about a teaspoon full). Add a tablespoon full of lemon juice to the icing for really fresh, zingy flavour.

Ginger - add a teaspoon full of ground ginger with the second egg. For the filling, put a tablespoon full of ginger cordial (or ginger syrup) in the icing, and chop up some crystallized ginger and mix that in with the filling too.

Chocolate - mix a tablespoon full of cocoa powder with two tablespoons of hot water. Leave to cool for a while, and add with the second egg.
For the filling, mix a tablespoon full of cocoa powder with a tablespoon full of water, and mix this with the icing

Coffee - add a tablespoon of camp coffee/coffee essence to the cake with the 2nd egg, and add a tablespoon full to the icing as well. You can also add some finely chopped walnuts to the filling.

You can also use a victoria sandwich mix for making small cakes - get a bun tin, and some cake cases, and put about a tablespoon full of mixture in each case, and bake for about 10 minutes (perhaps a bit longer, but you should check at 10 minutes at least) at 180 degrees C.

It's better to use glacé/water icing for these - mix a tablespoon of water with 4oz icing sugar. To flavour you can replace the water with any of the icing flavourings above (except for vanilla, when you should use vanilla essence and water). You may need a little more than a tablespoon of water to make the icing run properly, but be sparing, as you can't remove liquid from the icing, and if it's to runny it can be very messy! If your icing is too runny, add a bit more sugar. (beware: you can get in a cycle of adding more water and more sugar until you have twice or more as much icing as you meant to! Then you have to eat the remainder...smiley - winkeye)

You shouldn't use a victoria sandwich mix for:
- filling with whipped cream - you need a proper sponge mix for that, or the cream dissipates
- making swiss rolls


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Victoria Sandwich Cake

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