This is an all-time British classic and an absolute must when it comes to afternoon tea. Happily, Queen Victoria would agree too as it was her favourite cake!
The main reason it became distinguishable from the average sponge cake was because of the simple addition of baking powder, invented by British food manufacturer and chemist Alfred Bird, also famed for another invention Bird’s Custard, which bears his name to this day.
His baking powder invention enabled cake makers to include more fat in the form of butter in the mix, which made the cake mix richer and it also enable the cake to rise much more during cooking than its predecessors, and become springier and spongier, unlike the traditional heavy biscuit like sponges first created by the Spanish in the Renaissance era.
Serves: 6-8
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 20-30minutes
Ingredients:
- 3 large eggs (lightly beaten)
- 160g Winter Tarn Unsalted Butter
- 100ml fresh double cream
- 160g caster sugar
- 160g self-raising flour
- 125g raspberry jam
- 2 tbsp baking powder
- 1 tbsp icing sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Method:
Pre-heat your oven to 180°C, or for a fan oven 160°C.
Grease and line two loose bottomed 20cm cake tins and add a pre-cut circle of grease proof baking parchment to the base, remembering to lightly grease.
Add the butter, vanilla extract, baking powder and caster sugar to a large bowl and mix together using an electric whisk.
Begin to add the egg gradually in stages, remembering to mix together thoroughly each time you add more egg to the mix until all of the egg has been added.
Then carefully fold in the self-raising flour using a large metal spoon, then divide the mix evenly between the two lined cake tins.
Place the cake tins in the oven on the middle shelf for 20 – 25 minutes, check after 20 minutes until golden in colour and springy to touch.
Remove the tins from the oven and place on a wire cooling rack for around five minutes before turning out and removing the baking parchment circles from each cake.
While the two halves continue to cool on the wire cooling rack whip the cream in a mixing bowl until it forms into soft peaks.
Then spread the jam evenly between the two halves covering the entire surface of each, then evenly spread the whipped cream over one of the jammed halves and then carefully combined the two halves on a serving plate to make a whole cake and dust with the icing sugar ready to serve.