Next Saturday we reveal the first round winner of the Telegraph Morrisons Best British Recipes competition. Don’t panic if you haven’t got around to sending in your own favourite. There are 16more weekly winners to find before we choose the overall winner, so keep those entries coming in.
I’m glad to say there are lots of your recipes for sumptuous cakes. It bears out what we already know – that the British love to bake. The Women’s Institute takes it most seriously of all and their Victoria sponge competition is the cookery equivalent of a driving test.
Producing an evenly risen, high Victoria sponge sandwich cake, moist and tender with a buttery flavour and airy lightness, is the ultimate proof of the traditional British cook.
It’s also one at which home cooks, rather than professional chefs, excel. As Angela Hartnett’s mother once remarked about her boss, Gordon Ramsay: “He’s all very well but can he bake a cake?”
We know exactly what she means. This is an honest, delicious cake; it’s not about decoration or culinary fireworks. A Victoria sponge is always un-iced, served with just a dusting of icing sugar, neat but never prim.
As for the filling, according to the Women’s Institute guidelines, a Victoria sponge should be filled with raspberry jam and nothing else. Here, perilous though it feels, I disagree. Adding something rich and creamy with the jam rounds out the flavours.
Sophie Dahl layers her cake with buttercream as well as jam. This has the advantage that the cake keeps better than one filled with fresh cream and won’t need to be refrigerated, which tends to dry out the sponge. But fresh cream is the real deal, mellowing the full flavour of the jam without oversweetening the cake.
Nigella, who is a cream, jam and fresh raspberries advocate, adds cornflour to her cake mix. It’s a trick that American cooks use to reduce the gluten levels in their all-purpose flour, which equates to our strong bread flour. With our naturally lower gluten plain flour, made from “softer” British wheat, it gives the cake an airyquality.
As for the fat, queen of cakes Mary Berry insists that margarine makes for a lighter texture than butter. This is true, especially for the “all-in-one” method, where all the ingredients are beaten to a batter in a food processor. But butter gives a better flavour and, unlike margarine, I understand the ingredients list on the packet. But you choose.
The proof of the sponge cake, after all, isin the eating.
Victoria Sandwich recipe
6oz/170g caster sugar
6oz/170g soft butter
1 tsp vanilla essence
3 large eggs at room temperature
6oz/170g self-raising flour
1-2 tbsp of milk
4-5 tbsp raspberry jam
(see below)
¼ pint/140ml double cream, lightly whipped
icing sugar for dusting
- Preheat the oven to 350F/180C/gas4.
- Grease and line two 8in/20cm sandwich tins.
- Beat the sugar, butter and vanilla essence until pale and light, then beat in the eggs a little at a time to make a mousse-like consistency. Youcan do this with an electric mixer.
- Fold in the flour by hand (don’t beat it in or the cake may be tough). Add enough milk to make a dropping consistency. (Hold a spoon loaded with mixture sideways, and give a sharp jerk of the wrist. Some of the mixture should fall off.)
- Divide between the prepared tins, spreading out the mix gently.
- Bake for about 25 minutes until well risen and golden brown. Cool in the tin for 10minutes before turning out on to a rack to cool.
- Spread the underside of one cake generously with jam and top with whipped cream. Lay the second sponge on top, topside up. Dust with icing sugar and serve.
Raspberry jam
This quick jam has a fabulously fresh flavour. Make it just before you bake the cake or in the still-hot oven while the cake cools.
250g/8oz/250g raspberries
8oz/250g caster sugar
- Leave the oven on at Gas4/180C/350F.
- Heap the raspberries and the sugar into two separate piles on either side of a large baking tin.
- Bake until both piles are hot but try not to let the sugar colour. About 12-15 minutes should do it.
- Take the tin out of the oven and briskly scrape the sugar on to the fruit. It will splutter and bubble. Stir for a minute, until the sugar is completely dissolved, by which time the raspberries will have collapsed.
- Transfer to a shallow bowl and leave to cool.
TOP TIPS
- Use eggs at room temperature, since cold ones curdle the mixture, resulting in an inferior rise.
- If the butter is too hard, cut it into lumps and use your hand to beat it with the sugar. The heat from your hand will soften the butter much more quickly than a spoon.
- If you have electronic scales, weigh the mixture in the sponge tins. It’s easier than trying to judge by eye if the cake mixture has been divided equally.
- Use good-quality tins. Silver-coloured are better than black, which absorb more heat and can make the outside of the cake dark. I rate the Silverwood tins, available from good kitchen shops.
Register your recipes at telegraph.co.uk/bestbritishrecipes
Best British recipes: Victoria’s secret of the perfect sponge
Total time: 1 hour 10 minutes
