HI Everyone,

It’s been a while since I last wrote a blog post. Frankly, I needed a break from it all, I was getting sucked into a world where I was more bothered about how many people ‘liked’ a post or how many followers I had. So, I decided to take a breather, think about what I wanted to do, and write about things that interest me,

So, with that in mind I have decided to undertake a 30 day blog challenge, where I post every day throughout the month of August, and as August has 31 days, you lucky readers get an extra post, so technically it’s a 31 day blog challenge. And my first post for 1st August will be a classic British summertime cake. A Victoria sponge cake. This is one of the first things I remember baking by myself. It’s a very simple 2 layer sponge cake sandwiched together with jam, or cream, or cream and jam or fresh fruit. You could pretty much use whatever you like.

It’s dead simple.Just be aware that this is for an 8inch tin, if you have bigger tins you would need to alter the amounts of each ingredient.

Prep time: 15-20 minutes

Cooking time: 25 minutes

Ingredients:

• 225g softened butter
• 225g caster sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 225g self-raising flour
• 2 levels tsp baking powder

For the filling

• 4 tbsp strawberry or raspberry jam
• icing sugar for dusting

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to Fan 160°C. Grease two 8 inch sandwich tins, then line the base of each tin with baking parchment.
2. In a large bowl beat the butter and sugar into pale and creamy.
3. Slowly add the eggs one at a time until all combined.
4. Sieve the flour and baking powder into the wet mixture, and fold together, being careful not to knock out too much air.
5. Divide the mixture between the two tins and level out.
6. Bake in the pre-heated oven for about 25 minutes or until the cakes have risen and spring back when lightly pressed.
7. Leave to cool in the tins for 10 minutes, then turn out, peel off the parchment paper and finish cooling on a wire rack.
8. When completely cold, sandwich together with the jam and sprinkle over some icing sugar.