Recipe: Classic Victoria Sponge Cake & Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

I think that the Victoria sponge cake was the very first thing I ever learned to bake as a child and baking it now always reminds me of weekend afternoons spent meticulously weighing and measuring ingredients and then taking the mixing bowl to my Dad to get his help with beating the butter and sugar together.
Then I would wait (impatiently!) for the cake to cool before slathering it with jam and making a soft, fluffy buttercream filling.
There were a lot of times when I just couldn’t wait any longer and the filling would go inside a still slightly warm cake which, of course, melted the buttercream and more often than not would cause the top half of the cake to slowly slide off the bottom half so I had to push it back on and squish it down gently to stop it happening again.

Today, instead of making an entire round cake, I doubled the mixture and made Victoria sponge cupcakes.
Once they were cooled, I hollowed out a small well in the middle of each cupcake, filled that with strawberry jam and then topped it all off by piping vanilla buttercream frosting over the top of the jam filled wells.







VICTORIA SPONGE CAKE RECIPE:
150g unsalted butter - softened
150g sugar (you can use white/caster sugar or soft light brown depending on what sort of flavor you want; I generally use white sugar for this, though)
150g self raising flour - sifted
3 eggs
Preheat the oven to 355°F (180°C) and line 2 round cake pans with parchment paper.
Beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add in the eggs, one at a time, making sure to combine thoroughly after each addition.
Sift in the flour and mix until just combined.
Pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake for 20-25 minutes.
Leave to cool completely before spreading jam/jelly (I prefer strawberry, but have been told that blackcurrant or cherry works very well) over one cake layer; followed by the vanilla buttercream.

VANILLA BUTTERCREAM FROSTING:
½ cup unsalted butter - softened
4 ½ cups confectioners sugar
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
3-5 tablespoons 2% milk
In a large bowl, beat the butter until creamy.
Beat in a cup of the confectioners sugar at a time and then add in the vanilla extract.
Add in enough of the milk to achieve the desired consistency.

Vesta xox