Afternoon Tea Victoria Sponge
John bakes a lovely Victoria Sponge and fills with jam and cream cheese frosting while Charlotte gives advice about making cream cheese frosting!
Recipe:
225g butter or margarine225g caster sugarZest of 1 orange4 large eggs225g self-raising flour½ tsp salt
Cream Cheese Frosting:250g unsalted butter250g full fat cream cheese750g icing sugar (keep extra to hand in case more is needed)Also, a good pot of raspberry jam
Method:
Preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan/gas mark 4
Whisk together the baking fat, sugar and zest until very pale and fluffy
Beat the eggs in a jug and whisk in, a little at a time. The mixture will probably curdle; if it does don’t panic, just carry on.
Sift over the flour and the salt and fold in until you have a very smooth batter
Divide equally between the baking tins and bake for 18-22 minutes, until evenly risen and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
Allow to cool in the tin for five minutes, then invert onto a cooling rack to cool completely
Beat 250g of soft Unsalted Butter in a freestanding mixer for 3 minutes until creamy. You can do this by hand or using a handheld electric mixer, though you may find that this takes longer.
Add 250g icing sugar and beat until fully combined
Spoon 250g of cream cheese (yes, you need to use full fat, this is not a diet option!) into the buttercream mixture and beat until combined. You may find that the mixture goes wet and soupy, or that it starts to look like it is curdling – please do not worry in either case.
Add another 250g of icing sugar and beat until fully combined, scraping down the sides at least once.
Remove your beaters from the frosting and test by running a finger through the mixture; your finger should leave a trail that holds in the frosting
You are aiming for a thick whipped cream consistency so add more icing sugar if the mixture is too runny
Level your cake layers and sandwich together with frosting and jam in the middle
Cover your cake with a thin layer of frosting – known as a crumb coat, because it holds all of the crumbs inside – and refrigerate for 20 minutes to set
Fill your piping bag with frosting and cut a 1cm hole at the end. Use this to pipe a vertical line of dots, approximately 2cm each, down the side of your chilled cake
Use your palette knife to drag each dot of buttercream into a scallop shape
Hold your knife horizontally with the blade laid flat and pressed gently into the middle of the dot
Drag the frosting beneath your blade to the right until the line trails off
Pipe another vertical line of dots over the point at which the last line began to disappear and repeat step 9. You should now see how each line will build up to create this scalloped pattern.
Repeat this process until your entire cake is covered, finishing with a final vertical line of buttercream dots at the back of your cake