This is the first cake I ever made. Well not this one I’m showing you but the first cake I ever made was a Victoria sponge cake.
The one thing my mum never taught me growing up was baking and by the time I was about 18, I really felt like I needed to know how to bake a cake. So, I bought a cookbook for Desserts by James Martin. I liked it because it started by introducing you to the basics before immersing you into the more complicated things ( I‘d recommend the book to anyone interested in baking simple sweet treats)
So anyway, I attempted the Victoria sponge cake first and believe in or not, it didn’t backfire and I happily served it to my mum and her friends for their 4 o‘ clock tea.
Makes 1 cake
250 grams self raising flour
250 grams butter
250 grams castor sugar
1 tbs vanilla extract
3 large eggs
For the filling and frosting
750 grams marscapone cheese, room temperature
150 ml double cream, room temperature
1 punnet of blueberries
1 punnet of raspberries
Special equipment - 1 round 6 1/2 inch tin and parchment paper
Pre heat your oven to 175°C and line the bottom of your tin with baking parchment.
Sift your flour and set aside. In a bowl, cream together your butter, sugar and vanilla extract. Whisk it until is a pale yellow color. Then to this, add your eggs one by one and keep on whisking.
Add the flour last and mix it into a thick batter. Pour the batter into your baking tin and place on the middle shelf of the oven for 25 to 30 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.
For the filling and frosting, it is important to make sure the maracapone and double cream are at room temperature otherwise the marscapone will turn into ‘butter’ as you whisk it.
Put all the marscapone cheese into a bowl bowl and add the double cream bit by bit as you gently whisk the mixture. The marscapone should lighten up once all the cream is added. Set this mixture aside.
Once the cake is done, set aside and allow it to cool completely. Cut the cake in half horizontally so you have 2 halves. Spread half the marscapone on one half of the cake, spread some berries on the marscapone and then place the other half of the cake back on top.
NB: It is important that the cake has completely cooled or the filling will simply melt into the cake.
Use the other half of the marscapone filling to frost the top of the cake and garnish with more berries.