Domestic Goddess Training #1 - Baking the Perfect Victoria Sponge.

Hello my lovelies! So since my knee op, I've been deciding to don an apron and let loose that domestic goddess hidden inside me - the 1950s wife just fighting to get back out again! So after pouring through several cookbooks, I found one Squirreled away in one of my bookcases that caught my eye. 

'The Great British Bake Off: How to Bake: The Perfect Victoria Sponge and Other Baking Secrets' recipe book by Linda Collister has taken all the best recipes from the show into a book, that to be honest, the pictures just make you want to rip them out of the book. Now, I don't know about you, but I loved watching the Great British Bake Off, not for the competition, but literally because I loved all the different types of things they baked and how creative they could be with ingriedients! So I got started, firstly with what the recipe claims to be 'the perfect victoria sponge' - and in all fairness, I can't argue, it is bloody fantastic! I have made quite a few victoria sponges over the years and this one has definitely been the most successful, and after posting a picture of the finished product on twitter I was asked by fellow bloggers to post about it. So if you fancy a bit of cake with a cuppa, but don't want to trek to the store these are the ingriedients you will need:

- 225g unsalted butter (soft)

- 225g caster sugar

- 4 eggs

- 0.5 teaspoon of vanilla extract

- 225g self-raising flour (sifted)

- 1 tablespoon of milk 

- Strawberry Jam

For buttercream:

- Icing Sugar

- Unsalted Butter (soft)

- Vanilla Extract

I've found that the silicone cake tins work the best to cook in as the sponges just slip out so easily with little risk of breaking once it comes out the oven and gets moved onto the wire racks - these literally made all the difference to my most recent victoria sponge which slipped out of the tin perfectly:

Nom! You have no idea how excited I got when they turned out like this, last time the sponge stuck to the tin... Great for mid-baking snack, not so much for presentation though - Mary Berry would have not been pleased!

So once the sponge was done, I closed the recipe book and decided to wing the buttercream mix and what I wanted to put in a filling - tempted by nutella, I kept with the traditional strawberry filling but with a twist - fresh sliced strawberries! 

I sliced them quite thin so not to raise up the second sponge too much, but just thought it was a nice little variation on the class victoria sponge - plus it totally justified eating loads of cake because it did have fresh fruit in it - win! 

With the buttercream, I do it off of instinct really - a decent amount of butter but definitely outweighed with icing sugar. Just keep mixing the quantities until the mixture is almost white and fluffy in texture. I always add in vanilla esscence as well to add that extra bit of flavour! This is basically my favourite part of the victoria sponge - not gonna lie. 

My finished product:

Sadly, it didn't last like this for more than about five minutes. It was demolished by the family and the boy within a couple of hours, all with only good things to say about it... I, of course, did not have a cheeky two slices... Whoever said that is lying!

Here is the recipe on Amazon.com, just go to the contents page on 'lookinside' part and click on 'victoria sandwich'. Mary Berry even gives her own little tips! I would definitely recommend this recipe book to anyone, it has sooo many good recipes including macaroons that I have posted about earlier!

Are you fans of baking? Would you like more posts like this? Anyone else such a huge fan of The Great British Bake Off?

Love,