A Victoria sandwich is a quintessentially British cake and this sponge cake with raspberry and mascarpone cream is a little twist on that. It follows the Delia Smith all-in-one sponge recipe that I use as the base of many of my sponge cakes.
I spread a few large dollops of the wild raspberry jelly I made in the summer between the layers and used a mascarpone/fromage frais mix instead of whipped cream. I like that little bit of acidity it gives to counter the sweetness of the jelly. This is a lovely cake to have for afternoon tea!
Sponge cake with raspberry and mascarpone cream
Ingredients
- For the sponge
- 8 oz/220g self raising flour sifted
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 8 oz/220g caster sugar
- 8 oz/220g butter or margarine at room temperature
- 4 large eggs
- 4-6 drops vanilla essence
- For the filling
- 8 tbs raspberry jam or jelly
- 250 g mascarpone
- 200 g fromage frais
- 1 tbs castar sugar
- 3 drops vanilla essence
Instructions
- Pre-heat the oven to 170ºC325ºF/Gas mark 3
- Lightly grease two 20cm/8" loose-based cake tins
- Into a large mixing bowl, sift the flour and baking powder, holding the sieve high to give the flour a good airing. Then simply add all the other ingredients to the bowl, and whisk - preferably with an electric hand whisk - until thoroughly combined
- If the mixture doesn’t drop off a wooden spoon easily when tapped on the side of the bowl, add 1 or 2 teaspoonfuls of tap-warm water and whisk again
- Add equal amounts of the mixture to the 2 prepared tins, level off and bake on the centre shelf of the oven for about 30 minutes
- When cooked leave in the tins for only about 30 seconds, then loosen their edges by sliding a palette knife all round and turning them out onto a wire cooling rack
- For the filling, combine the mascarpone and fromage frais in a bowl; a balloon whisk will amalgamate them more quickly
- Stir in the sugar and vanilla extract
- Spread 4 tablespoons of jam/jelly over one of the sponge sandwiched, do the same with the other Spread the cream mixture over one of the sandwiches then put the other one, jam side down, on top
- Press down carefully to sandwich everything together and finish off with a light dusting of icing or caster sugar
