Victoria Sponge Cake.

As you may have noticed, a number of people having been turning to baking to add some flavour to their drab lives in these coronavirus times.

From freshly baked bread to luscious desserts, members of the public have been throwing on their aprons and whipping up a culinary storm in their kitchens.

Jumping on the baking bandwagon, Buckingham Palace has shared the recipe to one of the most quintessentially British bakes: the Victoria Sponge Cake.

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On the royal family‘s social media channels, the Palace explained that the recipe has been shared to mark the royal garden parties, which were due to take place in May before being cancelled.

“The Victoria sponge was named after Queen Victoria, who regularly ate a slice of sponge cake with her tea, each afternoon!” the royal family stated.

The instructions shared by the royal family denote the official Victoria sponge recipe used by Buckingham Palace’s pastry chefs.

In addition to the recipe, the royal family has also shared a video demonstrating the correct techniques needed to produce the fluffy, jammy sponge.

Here is how to make a royally approved Victoria Sponge Cake, according to Buckingham Palace’s pastry chefs:

VICTORIA SPONGE CAKE

Ingredients

For the sponge:

3 eggs

150g caster sugar

150g unsalted butter

150g sieved self-raising flour

1/2 tsp of vanilla essence

Jam (strawberry or raspberry)

For the buttercream:

150g softened unsalted butter

220g sieved icing sugar

1/3 vanilla pod or vanilla essence

METHOD

For the sponge:

1. First, pre-heat the oven to 180C (375F, gas mark 4).

2. Grease and line two eight-inch cake tins. If you only have one cake tin, you can bake the sponge and slice it in half.

3. Cream the caster sugar, vanilla essence and softened unsalted butter until light and fluffy. You can do this either by hand with a wooden spoon or with an electric whisk.

4. Whisk the eggs in a separate bowl.

5. Gradually add the beaten eggs to the sugar and butter mixture. Do so a little bit at a time, in order to avoid any curdling.

6. Sieve the flour and then gently fold into the mixture

7. Pour equal amounts of the cake mix into the two cake tins and smooth them over.

8. Place the cake tins on the middle shelf of the pre-heated oven, baking for around 20 minutes, until the cake looks golden brown.

9. After 20 minutes, check the cake is well-baked by inserting a skewer. If the skewer comes out clean, the cake is ready. 

10. Remove the sponges from their tins and leave them to cool.

For the buttercream:

1. Cream the softened butter for the buttercream with the sieved icing sugar and seeds from the vanilla pod (or vanilla essence).

To assemble the cake:

1. Ensure that both sponges are completely cold before spreading a layer of jam onto the surface of one sponge.

2. Next, spread a thick layer of buttercream on top of the jam. If you prefer, you can spread the buttercream first and then do the layer of jam second.

3. Once the layers have been spread on one sponge, place the second sponge on top and gently press down.

4. Sprinkle with icing sugar and, as per the Buckingham Palace pastry chef’s suggestion, serve with a pot of fresh English tea.