"Whoopsie Daisy" Victoria Sponge

This is possibly one of the simplest cakes to make and consists of 2 basic sponge cakes, with a layer of jam and cream sandwiched between them. My version is titled a 'Whoopsie Daisy' Victoria Sponge as I had a bit of a disaster and had to edit my cake from that of a traditional Victoria Sponge! On an official Victoria Sponge, the top of the cake is not iced or decorated apart from a delicate dusting of icing sugar, however, you will notice that mine is both iced and decorated, to cover a multitude of sins! The Women's Institute would have been horrified and thrown it straight in the bin!! The moral of this story is to be really careful when adding your raising agent and stick to the recipe! I had increased my quantities to make a larger cake and added too much baking powder. This caused my cake to rise rapidly in the oven and then collapse, leaving me with a cake which had a sunken middle :( EEK! Hence the crazy decorations. Apart from the sunken middle, this cake still tasted fab and went down very well indeed.

TOP TIP: Don't think you are Mary Berry/ Lorraine Pascale and measure your ingredients out by eye; use scales!! :)  

 

Ingredients:

4 medium eggs

8oz/ 220g caster sugar

8oz/ 200g self-raising flour

8oz/ 200g softened butter

1 tea spoon of baking powder

For the filling:

Raspberry Jam

2.5 oz/ 75g butter

6oz/ 175g icing sugar

Prep Time: 20 mins

Baking Time: 35-40 mins

Method:

1. Pre-heat your oven to 180C/fan 170C/gas mark 5 and line your sandwich tin.

2. In a large bowl, beat your butter and sugar together till light and fluffy.

3. Add your eggs to the mix and beat till well combined.

4. Sift in your flour and baking powder. Make sure not to add too much baking powder or your cake may sink! Fold in the dry ingredients.

5. Transfer your mix to your sandwich tin and smooth the surface with a spatula or the back of a spoon.

6. Bake for about 35 mins or until golden and the cake springs back when pressed. Turn onto a cooling rack and leave to cool completely.

7. To make the filling, beat the butter until smooth and creamy, and then gradually beat in your icing sugar. Beat in a few drops of vanilla extract if you're using it too.

8. Cut your cooled sponge in to give you two layers. Spread the butter cream over the bottom of one of the layers and top it with a generous layer of jam. Sandwich the second sponge on top and hey presto!

9. Either dust the top with a little icing sugar if you are going for a traditional Victoria Sponge or decorate with sweets of your choice. I made a little extra buttercream and spread this on top adding Jelly Babies and sprinkles for a nice and colourful cake.