We cook stuff: Victoria Sponge

The recipe we used for our Victoria Sponge is available here: www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1997/classic-victoria-sandwich

The making of our first edible creation, the supposedly simple Victoria Sponge, was a moderate success. Not all aspects went to plan, but I have certainly had worse in the past.

We started out by following the exact ingredients and measurements listed in the recipe. Although we did add some chocolate chips to the mix. The idea was that we would make one large sponge that we could cut in half to make the two layers of the sandwich. After cooking and cooling the first sponge however, we found that it was far too thin for that to happen.

Therefore it was necessary to make a second sponge. This at least provided us with an opportunity to make some tweaks to the recipe in order to give is a better result. For the second sponge, we decided not to add chocolate chips to the mix as they pretty much all sank to the bottom of the first sponge and just burned to the tin. We also added a bit more milk and a couple fewer eggs, because we didn’t have enough and I’d already been to the shops twice that morning. Otherwise, we used the same amount of dry ingredients as the recipe states.

Despite not following the instructions for the second sponge, it actually worked better than the first one. It turned out, for lack of a better word, spongier.

Once the two parts of the sandwich were cool, it was time to add the filling. Due to the size of the cake, double the original recipe amount, we used a whole jar of strawberry jam. The buttercream was made with some added lemon zest and a whole load of icing sugar.

The final product was, as previously mentioned, a moderate success. Both parts of the sandwich were light and spongy, the second one more so. The buttercream was actually really tasty with the added lemon and worked surprisingly well with the strawberry jam.

There was definitely a lot of positives to take away from our first real baking experience and some clear areas for improvement.

All in all a success and a great deal of fun. Tasty too.

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Less than average – We cook stuff