Victoria Sponge – Celebration Cake!
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A delicious classic bake – a Victoria sponge. Soft & light cakes, strawberry jam, vanilla buttercream & fresh strawberries!
Victoria sponge
Strawberry season isn’t quiiiite here yet, but I bought a packet anyway and they were surprisingly tasty! This led me to think I should 100% do something with them, but definitely not overdo them. So… I thought I would bake a classic! Funnily enough it is one of the simplest and yet most delicious classic cakes around!
When I was younger I used to think that this type of cake was boring – why would I want it if it’s not chocolate? But oh how naive was I. This cake is SO GOOD and one of the best cakes in the world. However, sometimes the simplest of things can be the most difficult to get absolutely perfect!
Layers
I find that with a Victoria sponge, it’s all about getting everything perfectly in proportion. Such as, if you’re making a two layered cake, everything should be 300g (i.e. the sugar, flour, butter and eggs) and same for if you were doing a larger cake – everything should be 400g! It makes it far simpler and generally provides a foolproof cake. This recipe is for a three layer, 8 inch cake – so for a smaller cake (two layers), simply reduce the cake ingredients to 300g, split the mixture into two tins, and bake for 20 minutes!
Eggs
I weigh out my eggs when making a cake like this so I have no doubts it’s going to work, and once you know your oven well enough you will know when is the perfect time to take the cake out of the oven and when it might need a tiny while longer in the oven!
Cream or buttercream?
This cake is traditionally served with fresh fruit and whipped cream, or jam and buttercream – its entirely up to you! Personally, when i’m making it last a bit longer, I use buttercream so that it stays fresh for longer – whereas the cream may go a bit icky, especially on a hot day!
Assemble
I tend to pipe my buttercream around the edge of each layer, then a bit more in the middle with my jam sitting on the top, it tends to not slide around this way! It also stops jam sliding down the sides so you keep the nice clean edges of the 3 layers of sponge. I use strawberry jam in this recipe however if you would prefer raspberry then why not?! Enjoy!
Victoria sponge - Celebration Cake!
Ingredients
Cake
- 400 g unsalted butter (softened)
- 400 g caster sugar
- 400 g eggs (roughly 8 eggs)
- 400 g self raising flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 4 tbsp whole milk
Decoration
- 150 g unsalted butter
- 450 g icing sugar
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 175 g strawberry jam
- fresh strawberries
Instructions
Cake
- Preheat the oven to 190ºC/170ºC fan and line three 20cm/8inch cake tins.
- In a large bowl, beat together the unsalted butter and caster sugar until combined.
- Then, add your eggs, whole milk, self raising flour and baking powder, and beat until combined again - but be careful to not over beat.
- Divide the mixture equally between the three tins and smooth it over.
- Bake for 25 minutes until the cake is golden and springs back (a skewer should also come out clean).
- Turn the sponges out onto a cooling rack and leave to cool fully.
Vanilla Buttercream
- Beat the unsalted butter with an electric mixer until it's smooth and loose.
- Then, gradually beat in the icing sugar & vanilla extract.
- If the icing is too stiff, add 1 tbsp whole milk at a time to get your desired thickness!
Decoration
- Spread or pipe the buttercream onto the top of one of the sponges, then spoon on half of your jam.
- Place the second sponge on top and repeat the process - finish with the third sponge, and any left over buttercream on top!
- Add some fresh strawberries, perhaps a sprinkle of icing sugar and serve!
Notes
- When decorating the cake, I like to pipe a small amount of the buttercream around the edge of the sponges, then put a little more in the middle with the jam on top - this stops it falling out all over the place, but this is simply my choice! 🙂
- This cake will last in an airtight container for 3 days, or you can freeze it for up to 3 months!
- I use this piping bag
- I use this Medium 2D Closed Star Piping Tip
- I use these 8" Cake Tin
ENJOY!
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J x
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Hi Jane, is there a cake on your website that you would recommend to be iced with fondant? It’s for my daughters birthday cake, top tier (6inch)on a 2 tier cake, bottom tier is going to be carrot cake. Many thanks Emily
I’d say any cake can be covered if you know what you’re doing – such as crumb coating etc! Carrot Cake is a very soft cake, so if you can do that then a Victoria sponge or chocolate cake etc should be fine! If in doubt, make it into a madeira style sponge as they’re a bit firmer! xx
Hi Jane, you’ve got me enthousiastic to enter the world of baking! I only posess a combi-microwave so I can only bake 1 cake at a time. Can I make all the cakemix at once? Or should I split it into 3 and prepare it seperately?
Kind regards,
Clare (in Holland!).
Personally, I wouldn’t make the mix all at once as I think fresh is best x
Hello, sorry I am new to this but what would you suggest for a 2 tier instead of 3? 200g or 300g? Initially it says 200g but at the bottom 300g? Thank you! X
300g!
I love this recipe! Could you please tell me how to scale the ingredients for both a 10” version and a 6” version? Thank you! x
For a 10″ you would add on 2/3 more, and for a 6″ you would take 1/3 off (roughly). The best website to use for conversions is this one as you can either input every ingredient, or just input your tin sizes etc! http://www.cakebaker.co.uk/baking-tin-size-conversion-calculator.html
Thank you so much!
How much would I need for 3 x 9” pans? Thank you x
I usually add on another 1/3 or 1/2 for 9″ 😊
This cake is amazing! I even made it gluten free and it still worked perfectly! It’s huge as well, which is an added bonus! Just perfect. Xx
Hi Jane, thank you for the recipe. I’ve followed it step by step exactly as you’ve described but my cakes turned out flat as a pancake. Any ideas? ☹️
There must be something wrong with the mixing then. You have to make sure to use the correct ingredients, no butter substitutes or anything other than stork, and be careful when mixing. Also make sure your oven is the correct temp.
Happened to me once. The baking powder had gone off. Make sure its fresh! Makes all the difference!
Hi, I want to make this cake as the top tier on my sons birthday cake. I plan to have a 8 1/2 inch carrot cake as the bottom tier so want to bake this cake in 6inch tins (3 layers) will 400g of ingredients be to much for these tins, would you recommend using the smaller cake recipe? I do want the tier to be quite tall and I won’t be putting as much butter cream etc inside or on top as will be using fondant icing , how long would you bake them for? Xx
I haven’t tried this amount in a 6″ tin a while, but try baking the cakes at 140C Fan for a longer amount of time. Therefore they’d bake flatter and stay more moist. The same amount should be fine if you want it to be taller x
Thank you x
Hi Jane,
Please can you tell me this….if I reduce this to the smaller 300g cake, do I need to reduce the amount of milk? I really need a foolproof recipe as I’ve had so many go wrong. I made one of your other cakes and it was lovely x
Many thanks Dawn
Yes reduce the milk slightly, or leave it out x
Thank you Jane. I made the smaller version of the cake today and it was fabulous! Success at last. The eggs weighed 320 so just adjusted everything in line with that. Used 1tsp baking powder but needed all the milk. It took about 30 minutes in my fan oven at 170. Thanks again. Best wishes Dawn
Ahh yes sometimes it can adjust slightly, but I am so so glad it was a success!! Xx
That cake really melts the heart ,😍😍😝 but if I make it smaller (200g…) the baking powder should be 1 tsp or 2 ??
Thank u
Just 1tsp
Hi Jane
I am going to make my daughters birthday cake and want to decorate with fondant icing, I always use your recipes as they always turn out really well. A friend said that using a single tin then cutting in half gives better results when decorating with fondant. Is this correct?
Thanks
Stereotypically that makes the cake the same shape as the others, but as long as you buttercream coat it and such correctly it shouldn’t matter which way you do it. x
Hi Jane, just wondering what depth your tins are?
8 x ? inch
Also, on all of the cake recipes when you specify 8inch cake tins, do you use the same tins for these- I just want to ensure that the amount of cake batter will always be the perfect amount for the tin across all of your wonderful recipes!!!
Thankyou!
Hiya! I have a variety of tins to be honest, but I use some that are about 4 inches deep, but they don’t fill up that high at all on a recipe such as this one as its only thinner sponges. I use them because they’re cheap and good, and if I wanted to do a deep cake I could.
Hi Jane, would this work with fresh cream filling or would the cake be too heavy? Is a buttercream filling better to hold the cake up?
Thank you
In general yes the buttercream is better as it can also then be kept at room temperature – if using fresh cream you’d need to keep it in the fridge and that dries the cake out. However, fresh cream would be tasty, its just best to eat the cake the same day.
How much fresh cream would I need to replace this with buttercream please?
I would go with 450-600ml whipped with 2-3tbsps of icing sugar! Make sure to store it in the fridge after though, which can often dry the cake out a little.
I would like to make this cake for one of nieces 2nd birthday. I would like to make 4 layers, adding colours to make it into a pastel rainbow cake. So I will split the mixture into 4 tins rather than 3. Would you recommended reducing the baking time and if so by how long roughly?
Hiya – It’s hard to say really as I haven’t baked this recipe into four tins, but I’d say about 5 minutes less. Keep an eye on it though.
I did a trial today and the cake came out moist and delicious, 20 minutes was perfect timing! Thank you
This cake and the lemon celebration cake are two of your cakes I have made so many times! They are truly brilliant recepies that really stand out, all of my friends and family love this cake. Thank you for sharing! I love your Instagram too x
Aw thank you so much! x
Hi Jane, I want to make this cake but in a square tin for 25 people what size tin would you recommend.
That’s hard to say because of cake serving sizes, but probably a 10″?