The Perfect Summer Cake!

It was my Grandma's 90th birthday a few weeks ago (Go Grandma! She's still an absolute wonder woman at 90!) and mum asked me if I could make a birthday cake. Instead of opting for the favourite, lemon drizzle cake, I thought I'd go for something more traditional, A Victoria Sponge Cake!

It was sky high, light and fluffy and full of freshly whipped cream, sweet jam and summer berries! 

Here's what you'll need: 

- for the cake -

4 free range eggs

225g caster sugar

225g self raising flour

2 tsp baking powder

225g butter (plus, a little extra to grease the tins)

- for the decoration & filling - 

jam (of your choice, we went for raspberry)

double cream 

strawberries

blueberries

raspberries

icing sugar (to dust)

1. Preheat your oven to 180C and grease your cake tins with butter and cut out a circle of greaseproof paper to sit perfectly in the bottom of the tin - it'll save you from any 'it won't come out!' dilemmas.

2. Into a large bowl break the eggs, add the sugar, flour, baking powder and butter (make sure the butter is at room temperature so it's easier to mix in.) At this point you'll need to get mixing, If you've got the arms of a gym god then you can mix by hand... I chose to use the electric mixer!

3. Mix until everything has blended together, the mixture should 'dollop' (great word) off the spoon nicely.

4. Spread the mixture evenly between the two tins and use a silicone spatula to make sure you get every last bit of mixture out - or don't, because you know, lick the bowl and all that. Make sure the cakes are even and place them in the oven for 25 minutes. I know it's tempting but try not to keep opening the oven door to check - look through at about 20 minutes to see how they're doing.

5. They should be golden brown on top and coming away at the sides of the tin. I always prick the middle with a toothpick, if any mixture comes out they're not done. If it's clean, they're done.

6. Take them out of the oven, out of the cake tins - which hopefully shouldn't be too difficult as you greased and lined the tin - peel off the paper and leave them to cool.

7. Once they've cooled completely, whip your double cream using an electric whisk and cover the top of one of the cakes. You can level off the cake if you want too - as it will have risen high in the middle - by slicing it off with a sharp knife, but I chose not too so add some height.

 8. Then put a layer of sliced strawberries and blueberries in the cream. On the bottom of the other cake spread then jam, then sandwich that bad boy together! 

9. For decoration I placed some more cream and berries on top. I hadn't planned to put cream on top, but I needed 'glue' to hold the berries on. Then a dusting of icing sugar et voila! your summer Victoria Sponge is ready to go!