VICTORIA SPONGE CAKE
200 g unsalted butter (room temp)
200 g caster sugar
200 g self raising flour
4 eggs
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons milk
lemon extract to taste and zest of lemons
Beat butter and sugar together till combined.
Add eggs one at a time, sift dry ingredients and add, then add milk and extract and zest. Don’t overmix.
Line pans, I used 2 x 8″ tins and that gave me thin even layers as I was making 5 to give a taller cake.
Bake at 160ºC (fan) for 20 – 25 min or till a toothpick comes out clean.
Let cool in pan then remove.
Simple Syrup:
100 g caster sugar
100 ml water
Mix and bring to the boil for 4 mins.
When mixture is cold I add lemon extract to paint on my layers so that it keeps the cake moist as I had to make it two days in advance.
Buttercream:
250 g unsalted butter
600 g icing sugar, sifted
2 tablespoons spoon milk
lemon extract to taste
Whisk butter till fluffy and almost white, add half icing sugar and whisk for 1 min.
Add 1 tablespoon milk, add rest of icing sugar and rest of milk and extract to taste and whisk for 5 min.
I coloured mine blue with blue gel and edible blue dust.
Photo: Chantelle Scheepers Mustoe
