Victoria sponge
The cake we bake when someone's coming round and we want it to feel like an occasion. Equal weights, no fuss — it has never once let us down.
The classic equal-weights sponge: weigh your eggs in their shells, then match the butter, sugar and flour to them. It has never once let us down.
Ingredients
- 4 eggs (~200g in shell)
- 200g soft butter + extra for tins
- 200g caster sugar
- 200g self-raising flour, sifted
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 4 tbsp raspberry or strawberry jam
- 150ml double cream, softly whipped
- Icing sugar, to dust
Method
- Heat oven to 180°C fan. Butter and line two 20cm sandwich tins.
- Beat butter and sugar until pale and fluffy — 3–4 minutes, longer than you think.
- Add eggs one at a time with a spoonful of flour each (stops curdling), then the vanilla. Fold in the rest of the flour and baking powder gently.
- Divide between tins, level, bake 20–22 minutes until golden and springing back.
- Cool in tins 5 minutes, then onto a rack. When cold, sandwich with jam then cream, and dust the top with icing sugar.
Kit for this recipe
Two 20cm loose-base sandwich tinsmatching tins = even layers, no trimming
Baking parchment circlespre-cut, zero faff, never a stuck base
A wire cooling rackairflow underneath stops a soggy bottom
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