I have taken Queen Victoria's favourite cake and made it even better. I am sure she would be pleased with the result. This is such a beautiful sponge, with a lovely almond flavour. If you want to send this as a gift to someone, this recipe is available as a baking kit in the Store.
Ingredients:
225g margarine
125g self-raising flour
225g white sugar
100g ground almonds
4 large eggs
1 teaspoon baking powder
Half teaspoon almond extract
Raspberry jam for the filling
Topping:
140g icing sugar
2 tablespoons milk
10g flaked almonds
Whisk the sugar and margarine together until light and fluffy. Then add the eggs one at a time and mix well. Then add the flour, baking powder and ground almonds and continue to whisk until everything is well combined. Because there is less flour in this cake than an ordinary sponge, you need to mix well, to help it to rise, so whisk it for around a minute after you have put the flour in and then stir it with a spoon to make sure all the flour is mixed in.
Bake in two 20cm cake tins which have been lined with baking paper for 25 - 30 minutes at 180 degrees. All ovens are different, so check it after 25 minutes. The sponge will be really soft to touch, but you can tell it is ready if it has started to come away at the sides of the tin. Let it cool in the tin for a few minutes and then put on a cooling rack. When it is ready, sandwich together with jam. I use raspberry but a cherry jam would be lovely too.
When the sponges are cool, mix the icing sugar and milk to a smooth paste by adding the milk a tiny bit at a time, so the icing doesn’t go too runny. Decorate with flaked almonds.
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