May recipe: Victoria sandwich cake

This classic sponge cake is simple to make and ideal for sunny spring days. You can fill it with any jam of your choice, together with whipped cream or buttercream if liked. This variant uses jam and vanilla buttercream.

Victoria sandwich cake

For the sponge cake:
4 oz (approx 100 g) butter
4 oz (approx 100 g) light brown soft sugar
2 eggs
4 oz (approx 100 g) self-raising flour

For the vanilla buttercream:
1.5 oz (approx 40 g) butter
3 oz (approx 80 g) icing sugar
1 teaspoon (1 x 5 ml spoon) vanilla essence


To make the sponge cakes:
Grease two sandwich cake tins about 7” (approx 18 cm) diameter and line with greaseproof paper.
Cream the butter and sugar for the sponge cake until light and fluffy.
Beat in the eggs.
Stir in the self-raising flour and mix until smooth.
Divide the mixture between the two sandwich cake tins and level the surface.
Bake at about 180 C for about 20 minutes. The cakes are done when they are light golden brown, shrinking away from the sides of the tins, and spring back when pressed lightly with a finger.
Turn out and cool on a wire rack.

To make the buttercream:
Sieve the icing sugar into a mixing bowl.
Cream the icing sugar and butter together until smooth.
Beat in the vanilla essence.

To assemble the cake:
Spread one sponge cake with the vanilla buttercream.
Spread the other with 3-4 large spoonfuls of jam of your choice.
Sandwich the cakes together with the buttercream and jam as filling.
Serve cut in slices. I expect to get about 12 slices out of this quantity, but it depends how big a slice you like.

The finished cake will keep in an airtight tin for about a week. The plain sponge cakes can be frozen; when you want to use them, thaw them out and sandwich together with jam and/or buttercream as above. I’ve never tried freezing the finished cake.