SUMMER VICTORIA SPONGE.

You might have thought, 'girl, are you mad?' when you first saw the title of this blog post but trust me, it is all about the summer fruits not the current season with this one. I recently gifted a friend a great recipe book which included a Victoria sponge that looked like something straight out of a French patisserie. So thought I would try my hand at recreating something similar as I have been on the hunt for a way of tarting up a classic Victoria sponge for a while now and this what I came up with. 

YOU WILL NEED:

For the cake itself you will need 2 8inch sandwich tins greased and lined with baking paper, 225g butter, 225g caster sugar, 225g self raising flour, 4 eggs, 1 TSP vanilla extract and 2 TSP baking powder. To decorate you will need, strawberry jam, 140g butter, 280g icing sugar, 200g of thinly sliced strawberries, a few raspberries and blueberries and 1 TSP icing sugar. 

METHOD:

As always you start by preheating the oven to 180°C/Gas 4. This cake is an 'all-in-one' method, so place all of the ingredients for the sponge into a bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and mix on a low speed, alternatively you could use an electric whisk with a large mixing bowl. Once mostly incorporated, scrape down the sides and give the batter a good mix for a further 10-20 seconds. 

Divide the batter evenly between the 2 prepared baking tins, and bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes or until well risen and a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. Once you cake is baked transfer to a cooling rack and allow to cool. 

While the cakes are cooling you need to whip up a basic buttercream by combing the butter and icing sugar, add a little milk if necessary to loosen the buttercream. Once the sponges are cool place one sponge on a serving plate. Carefully spoon the jam onto the top of this sponge, spreading it almost to the edge. Turn the other sponge over and spread half of the buttercream onto the bottom or flat side of this sponge. Gently press the sponge onto the jam layer, cream side down. The cakes will sandwich together and with a gentle press, you should see the buttercream and jam at the edges of the cake. 

Spread the remaining buttercream on top of the cake, use a palette knife to get a smooth finish, spreading the buttercream to the edges, as this is the 'glue' that will stick the sliced strawberries onto the sponge. Starting at the outer edge, place strawberry slices around the cake, pointed-side outwards, to make a circle. Carry on with another circle, overlapping slightly so that you cannot see the cream underneath.  Continue to make rings until you a small circle left in the middle of the cake in which to place the blueberries and raspberries. As the strawberries I used where quite large I decided to add a couple of blueberries around the edge just to help cover the buttercream. Lastly dust the centre of the cake with icing sugar.  

Sit back, take a large slice and enjoy!

 If you give this bake ago for yourself please make sure you take a photo and tag me on Twitter or Instagram @ladylikelen as I would love to see your variations.