Victoria Sandwich ala Mary Berry

Ever since I started watching "The Great British Bake-Off", I have wanted to try a Victoria Sandwich. I'm not exactly sure why that is; it's such a simple cake and as I have stated repeatedly, unless a cake is particularly toothsome, I'm not usually into it. Maybe it's because this is such a classic. Dunno, but Luna's first birthday gave me a good excuse to try it.


Here's today's cast.


The recipe calls for self-rising flour. I didn't have any but I followed the recipe on King Arthur Flour's webpage to make my own. For every 120g. of flour, add 1-1/2 tsp. baking powder and 1/4 tsp. salt. I needed 225g. so I doubled the recipe.


Then I measured out what I needed.


In addition to the baking powder that was already in the flour, the recipe called for two more teaspoons.


I cut the butter into small cubes so they would soften faster and more uniformly.


The recipe uses an "all-in-one" method which means all ingredients are put into a bowl and mixed together. I don't have a hand mixer and I thought the Kitchen Aid would be too powerful for this so I opted to do it by hand. So, I creamed the butter and sugar a bit first.


I added the eggs and gave it a stir, just till blended.


Nancy's lining paste was perfect for greasing the pans.


Parchment paper was put into the bottom of each pan.


Mary's recipe did not call for vanilla extract but I went rogue and added a teaspoon.


I added the flour/baking powder mixture and gave everything a good stir with the Danish whisk. The recipe says to be careful not to overbeat. 


The resulting batter is quite thick. I divided it into the two pans and for good measure, I weighed them. I was off by only 1g! It's ridiculous how happy things like that make me.


Into a 350F oven for about 20 minutes--they weren't quite ready so I left them in for an additional 4 minutes. I cooled the cakes for about 5 minutes on a rack then turned them out onto a towel on my hand, then onto the racks. That way the rack didn't leave marks on their tops.


Just before serving, I moved one cake to a serving plate and spread a generous amount of strawberry jam over it. Mary didn't give exact measurements for the jam or the whipped cream so I looked at another recipe to get a ballpark.


The recipe I looked at for the whipped cream said to start with 300ml. of cream and whip to soft peaks. I think I should have gone for "almost stiff" peaks because it was a bit soft and oozy.


Yup, oozy is right.


A good dusting of powdered sugar and that was it! It is a basic cake but the addition of jam and cream made it special. It also has a great deal of potential for other flavors and fillings. I can see why it's a favorite.

Here's the promised link:

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