The Best Victoria Sandwich Recipe

There is nothing better than eating a Victoria Sponge outside with your friends and family at some kind of BBQ or garden party under the gorgeous summer sun! Mary Berry is the queen of baking and no body makes a better Victoria Sponge cakes than her - in my opinion her recipe for the classic sponge is by far the best so I wanted to share with it with you. I make Victoria Sandwiches a lot (in fact as I type this my Victoria Sandwich is baking away in the oven ready to be eaten tomorrow at a Garden Party!) and I would definitely say they are more of a summer cake.

The Ingredients

4 free-range eggs

225g/8oz caster sugar, plus a little extra for dusting the finished cake

225g/8oz self-raising flour

2 tsp baking powder

225g/8oz baking spread, margarine or soft butter at room temperature, plus a little extra to grease the tins

The Method

1.Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4.

2.Grease and line 2 x 20cm/8in sandwich tins. Draw around the base of the tins to get a perfect circle that will fit inside the tins to line them. Use a small bit of butter on the tops of your fingers to rub around the greaseproof paper on the base and around the sides. 

3.Break the eggs into a large mixing bowl, then add the sugar, flour, baking powder and butter. I use a free standing mixer as I find it is the quickest and easiest way to make sure all the ingredients are combined. 

4.Mix everything until combined. Be careful not to over mix - as soon as everything is combined you should stop mixing. To know if you have the right consistency, the mixture should drop easily off the spoon. 

5.Divide the mixture evenly between the tins: you can weigh the filled tins if you want, but I find the best technique is to use a soup ladle and keeping adding spoon by spoon to each tin so that they are even. Use a spatula to remove all of the mixture from the bowl and gently smooth the surface of the cakes.

6.Bake the cakes for 25 minuets on the middle shelf and don't be tempted to open the door while they're cooking. Only check on the after 20 minuets. 

7.You can tell when the cakes are done because they will be golden brown in colour and coming away from the sides of the tin. Leave them to cool for around 10 minuets and then run a knife around the edges of the tin, before turning the cakes out of the tins onto a wire rack to cool. 

8. When I am ready to assemble the cake, I check to make sure that the cakes are fully cool. Then I will add whipped cream into the middle of the cakes along with some jam - usually strawberry! In the photo above I also added some strawberries and blueberries to the middle of the cake. This looked really good, but when it came to cutting the cake - it was a nightmare. If you want to use fruit to decorate your cake then I would suggest putting the fruit on top. Sometimes I will do a union jack with the fruit as this is really summery and British! You can also sprinkle the cake with icing sugar as this looks really pretty and 'put together'. 

If you have a go at making this cake, you can tweet me at @missbeccabeauty with some photos!

MissBeccaBeauty xo