Ending the year with the Soggy Bottoms is a great idea! And I’m saying that for purely selfish reasons.
We’re on to a sweet recipe and honestly…there’s nothing I love more than cake. I’ve never had a Victoria sandwich before, but there was something holiday-esque about it to me. I’m probably wrong, but it was probably the combination of fruit, cream, and a dusting of sugar that had me make the connection. A Victoria sandwich consists of two layers of sponge with raspberry jam and buttercream in between. Sounds delicious, right?
And it could not come at a more perfect time. Since switching my anti-depressant medicine, I’ve also been trying to be more cognizant of how much I eat and what I eat. Not necessarily a diet, per se, but just being more aware of the nutrition I’m getting, if I’m snacking, etc. The impulse to buy a dang Twix bar or some Ben & Jerry’s has been super high lately, but making desserts and cocktails for work is an acceptable treat. At least that’s what I tell myself.
Bake: Victoria sandwich
Episode: Series 1, Episode 1; Series 5, Episode 10; Series 7, Episode 10
Whose challenge: Mary Berry
Time limit: Ninety minutes
Resources: I used this recipe from The Great British Bake-Off website.
Process: Well, I already knew I had to make one adjustment with this recipe. Though raspberries are my favorite fruit, my roommate is allergic, and I did not want to doom myself to eating this dessert alone. I decided to change the raspberry jam to blackberry.
As an aside, I have such fond memories of blackberry jam. My family and I used to live on some acreage that had wild blackberry bushes. We’d pick them (always in the rain for some reason) and make jam. The first batch of jam would be served over vanilla ice cream while the jam was still warm. It was so delicious.
By now, I’ve gotten the hang of finding U.S. equivalents to U.K. ingredients, but jam sugar threw me. Google told me that gelling sugar is the U.S. equivalent, but I’m used to pectin. And I believe gelling sugar is sugar with pectin. So to make regular jam, I had to use both sugar and pectin, though I think I used just a slight too much of the latter.
If we’re being honest, the process of cooking this was a bit of a clusterfuck. I went to crack an egg and essentially just smashed it all over the counter. I also had to fish eggshells out of the batter. Could I find piping bags for the buttercream? Of course not, so I had to MacGuyver a piping bag out of a Ziplock bag. I was like a bull in a china shop and I was thankful no one was home to see me making a disaster all over the kitchen.
In terms of the finished product, it was delicious, though Mary Berry would definitely say it was overbaked. The directions noted to check the sponge at twenty minutes and then monitor it for five more, if it wasn’t finished. To me, the cakes weren’t as springy as they should have been at the twenty minute mark, but they brown incredibly quickly after that. I should have been keeping a closer eye on it.
Either way…still yummy and it was eaten in less than a week by me, my roommate, and my boyfriend. In fact, my boyfriend had “left” some things here on Sunday and wanted to swing by to get them.
Reading material: I feel like this is the most quaintly British thing I’ve made so far and what book is both quaint and British? Well, it’s The Royal We by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan!
For some reason, I picture both things going great with a sunny, lovely picnic. A pretty cake and a good romance. Would the Fug Girls approve? I hope so.
The cake is sweet and light with the blackberries helping to add just a slight tart balance. I would say The Royal We is definitely on the fluffy, romantic comedy side and during Elyse and RHG’s joint review of the book, Elyse referred to the book as being “addictive.” And considering I ate the last piece of cake out from under my boyfriend, I’d agree that people would be hard pressed not to sneak a second slice.
What do you think of my Victoria sandwich? Is switching the raspberry jam to a blackberry variety considered sacrilege?
If you want to keep it simpler, whipped cream is the traditional filling, not buttercream. With the jam, you can add a green apple for the pectin (grate it without peeling it).
Lemon curd is awesome with a Victoria sponge. Awesome.
My husband is British, and every year I make a Victoria sandwich for his birthday cake. I use a recipe from the BBC Good Food website. It’s basically the same as this one but you don’t make the jam, just buy a good-quality one. It saves a LOT of time.
It’s been fun to see the progression of baking this recipe over the years, which I mostly documented on Instagram. It went from passable the first year of our marriage (in which I used a recipe from my mother-in-law that involved me weighing the eggs) to this masterpiece last year: https://www.instagram.com/p/BdZEXO_HpFL/
I used an icing glaze for the top of mine, which is definitely a departure from the normal recipes but was a specific request from my husband.
My Victoria sponges really took a leap when I did the following:
– On one trip to England, I raided a Sainsbury’s and brought back English cake pans, which tend to run smaller than American.
– Using castor sugar, which I can buy in the international section at Wegmans. Dreadfully expensive, but lasts for two years. You can get a similar effect by running regular sugar through a food processor.
I can so relate to the sweet craving with med changes! My body trying to make serotonin. I want all the bread!! Gorgeous cake, I think this might appeal to me more than a simple Victoria sponge.
Meg, I’ve given up buying normal sugar in the shops here in the US. Instead I order castor sugar in bulk from Amazon. Yes, it’s more expensive, but my meringues come out so much better and it’s an easy one for one exchange.
I’m confused. Raspberries & blackberries are both in the Rosaceae family. Shouldn’t your roommate be allergic to them as well? Science bitches can you help me?
Your cake is lovely. I think your snowflakes are inspired.
@Nicolette: I’m halfway tempted to bring back a few bags next time we go to England. I wonder if bags of sugar are acceptable for customs?
My grandmother, a professional baker from Cumberland, could whip up a piping bag from brown paper in three seconds. Worked perfectly well for little hands which never learned the fine art of piping perfect rosettes!
@Meg: And here I always thought castor sugar was the same as confectioners sugar. 0_o. Good thing I never actually tried the substitution.
Ah, I just Googled, and castor sugar seems to be the same as superfine sugar which I have used and is available in the grocery store.
This is such an educational site. 🙂
I have to laugh at the caster sugar mania there. As an American living in the U K baking has been a real trauma. Over here “table sugar” is *much* more coarsely ground than US sugar. I learned the hard way that UK sponges don’t want to rise when using UK table sugar. But although I know that caster sugar is finer than US sugar, I would think that for most recipes, even sponges, US table sugar would work ok. Certainly the Joy of Cooking calls for regular sugar in a sponge. I’ve come close to concluding that baking just doesn’t translate. The flour and butter are also different, and I’ve had several disasters with old favourites. Btw, Sugar is fine to bring in. A friend of mine just came to England armed with karo syrup, crisco, flour and pecans after pecan pie was a fiasco last time! I think the pecans were probably bad, but they are checking for bombs not food.
@Meg: I brought a one-kilo bag of golden castor sugar home from our trip last year without any problems, just declare it. Next time, two bags.
@Kathy: A friend of mine just came to England armed with karo syrup … But why? Lyle’s Golden Syrup is so fabulous. I use it for everything that requires corn syrup, including homemade caramels, which are divine with Lyle’s.
I say what Flora said. A cream filling is better if it’s just cream. I don’t even know what buttercream is but I bet it is full of sugar. Yuk.
Whipped cream is a more traditional filling than buttercream, lighter, less sugar and less fat,it’s also what Victoria would have eaten; I think buttercream would mask some of the delicacy of both the flavour and the texture of the sponge.
For Americans living in the UK our regular flour has a lot less gluten than yours, so for any yeast raised bake use ‘strong’ flour, which is made from high gluten varieties of wheat, and you should get decent results.
@DonnaMarie: there are certain allergens present in raspberries but not in strawberries or blackberries (ditto for those with strawberry allergies but who are able to eat raspberries/blackberries). One example is a pair of proteins found in raspberries (and related to proteins in apples, cherries and peaches), but not found in blackberries or strawberries. These proteins were identified based on their association with IgE (antibodies produced in response to an allergic reaction). People with sensitivity to salicylates tend to experience reactions to most if not all fruits in this family. I avoid raspberries because I get intense headaches when I eat them (no idea why – although it is documented in the medical literature that raspberries are a headache-trigger in some people, there is little research explaining why), but I can eat strawberries or blackberries by the bushel.
I agree with the criticism of the buttercream. Whipped cream would have been a better option to add some lightness. I’m curious why the recipe opted to go with buttercream.
As for the sugar, I’ve found this lovely superfine, quick dissolving sugar that I’ve been using for both baking and my morning coffee.
@Jenny: Thanks for the explanation on allergies! I thought the two might be related, so I cleared the switch to blackberry with my roommate first.
Re: Sugars and Cream
I use my Scottish Great Grandmother’s shortbread recipe which calls for Caster Sugar. It’s the one and only thing her son, my maternal grandfather, ever baked. After he moved to Canada, he switched to using what is called here “Berry Sugar.”
Berry Sugar is definitely finer than the table sugar we use in Canada, but certainly not powdered (Icing) sugar. Despite having traveled extensively in the US, I never noticed whether US table sugar was a different consistency than I was used to at home. And since I wasn’t baking when I traveled there, I never looked at the variety of sugars in a super market in the US.
I would also agree that whipped cream would be a better choice than a buttercream icing in a Victoria Sponge–especially unsweetened cream. I vaguely recall reading in some cookery book that cream won’t whip without a bit of sugar, but experience says that’s just not true. Keep your bowl, beaters and cream cold and the cream will whip up perfectly and taste like cream instead of sugary icing.
I’ve done both whipped cream and buttercream. Personally, I like the whipped cream a bit better, but my husband prefers the buttercream and he is the birthday boy. But making my own buttercream is far better than getting it in a can.
I will also splurge and get White Lily flour, which is a staple in Alabama but harder for me to get in Pennsylvania. My husband was laughing at me the year we went to Gatlinburg and came home with two bags of flour.
Just saw a version of this called English Tipsy cake where, once you have the cakes baked, you mix 1/2c milk with 1/2c brandy and pour it over, soaking the cake.
This sounds delicious and I am excited to try it!
… now I want a piece of cake …
in the US you can buy regular granulated sugar and extra fine/superfine granulated sugar. the extra fine is comparable to castor sugar and should cost about the same–but it’s not measured the same. Different from confectioner’s, aka 10x sugar, which is a very fine powdered sugar and some cornstarch added to prevent caking–this addition is why it’s not good for drinks.
my mom had a side hustle decorating cakes. before it was called a side hustle.