I’ve heard a lot about Victorian sponge cake since I love many historial romance but I don’t believe I’ve had one until my recent layover at Heathrow. It was 6AM but I had been up for 6 hours from a connecting flight and saw this beautiful frostless cake. I hate frostings so I gravitated towards it immediately.
It didn’t bother me that I was having cake for breakfast at Heathrow airport. It was so good! Or I was extremely tired and hungry. In any case, I will have to try a real Victorian sponge cake within central London next time I visit.
In the meantime, I baked up a Victorian sponge cake (after successfully endeavoring to make taro sponge cake) for Valentine’s day dessert.
I followed this recipe from BBC Good Food (it’s one of my favorite places to check out British cooking).
Granny’s Victoria Sponge Cake recipe
I didn’t follow the method exactly. I actually used the method to make sponge cake, which is separating the yolk and whites. I peaked the whites, this time very successfully! Then I beat the yolk with butter, sugar, and vanilla over hot water. I then mixed this into the whites and slowly added flour. To make self rising flour, I added 1.5 tsp baking powder and 1 tsp salt to about 1 cup of regular all-purpose flour.
For the jam, I had 2 types. One is homemade grapefruit jam that I got from Mr. Darcy’s mother and another is Patagonia Calafate berry from a friend’s trip to Argentina. It’s a dark berry very much akin to blueberry but with a distinct hint of bitter taste.
Happy Valentine’s day to all lovers, parents, friends, and siblings and all those lonely hearts in search for another.
