The Classic Victoria Sandwich Cake

On the Jammy Cow website's page, "101 things to do with jam", making a Victoria Sandwich Cake is number 11. After all, a part from spreading jam on a piece of bread in one form or another, there is little more obvious to do with jam than to make a Victoria sandwich cake.

A Victoria sandwich cake was the first big cake that my daughter made on her own. Two years ago, at the tender age of 7, she had decided she had well and truly cracked fairy cakes and biscuits and wanted to try a bigger challenge so we flicked through her Usborne recipe cards of Yummy Things To Make and Eat and she selected the Victoria Sponge Cake. And off she went, with little more than supervision and oven intervention from me. Not to take anything away from her achievement, it is in fact little more than a very big fairy cake in terms of its recipe so it a simple cake to make that looks more impressive than the effort would suggest. She was rightly very pleased with herself and I think the Victoria Sandwich Cake will always hold a fondness for her.



It was little surprise then that this morning when I asked the girls what cake they would like to help me make she suggested the Victoria Sandwich cake. And why not? It took about 20 minutes to mix, 25 minutes to cook and was sandwiched together after lunch shortly before we went out on a rather chilly walk with amble amounts of butter icing and raspberry jam. The thought of a generous slice of that when we got home spurred us on for the last part of our walk. In we came, casting off coats, hats, gloves and scarfs and within minutes we were cuddled up on the sofa with a slab of cake and a warm drink. Perfect!



Victoria Sandwich Cake

225g (8oz) butter
225g (8oz) caster sugar
4 medium eggs
225g (8oz) self-raising flour
110g (4oz) butter
225g (8oz) icing sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
110g (4oz) raspberry or strawberry jam

Preheat oven to 180°C, gas 4 and grease and line sandwich tins. Place the butter into a large bowl and if it is straight out of the fridge heat it in the microwave for 30 seconds. Add the sugar and cream together. Add the eggs one at a time, stirring in between additions. Sift in the flour and stir well to combine. Spoon equally into the two sandwich tins then bake for 25 minutes until springy to the touch. Leave to cool in the tin for 5 minutes before turning out to cool completely on a wire rack. In the meantime, mix together the butter, icing sugar and vanilla to make the butter icing. Once the cakes are cool, spread one half with the butter icing and one half with the jam then sandwich the two fillings together.