Chocolate Victoria Sponge Cake with Chocolate Buttercream

This was my first 'big' project, and my first big success! My mum makes great sponge cakes and they are something that I have always loved, so I tried to make my own. My OH asked for chocolate buttercream, so that's what he got! I found the recipe on the SuperCook website, and I reproduce it below for your pleasure.



Chocolate Victoria Sponge Cake with Buttercream

Cake:
225g (8oz) butter or margarine
225g (8oz) caster sugar
4 medium size eggs
175g (6oz) self-raising flour - sieved
50g (2oz) cocoa powder

Icing:
75g (3oz) unsalted butter
175g (6oz) icing sugar
3 tbsp cocoa powder
milk or warm water

Sieved icing sugar to decorate.

1. Pre-heat oven to 180ºC/350ºF/Gas Mark 4. Grease and line two 20cm (8 inch) sandwich tins.
2. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in the eggs and if the mixture starts to curdle, add a little flour.
3. Fold in the remaining flour and the cocoa powder with a metal spoon.
4. Divide the mixture between the two tins and bake for approx. 25 minutes until golden brown and firm to the touch.
5. Remove from oven and leave to cool before turning out onto a cooling rack.
6. To make the butter icing, place the butter in a bowl and beat until soft.
7. Gradually sift and beat in the icing sugar and then add enough milk / water to make the icing fluffy and spreadable.
8. Sift and beat the cocoa powder in to the icing and use to sandwich the two sponges together.
9. Dust the top of the cake lightly with the sieved icing sugar.



Apart from using margarine in the buttercream (though margacream just doesn't have the same ring to it), and mixing some cocoa with the icing sugar that I dusted on top of the cake, I kept the recipe as it is. The cake tasted so nice that we ate the whole thing between us. I blame it for the extra poundage on my hips, well, at least the last 2..

Snickers Cookies

I am still trying to get the hang of Blogger, especially inserting photos. I managed to get around it on the last post, but that was 6 days ago and I have been sleep since then! Ooh, I think I've got it. Yes! Hurrah!

Anyway.

My second baking attempt also came from the cookbook called "The Classic 1000 Student Recipes" (Buy in the UK or Buy in the USA). The recipe for Snickers Cookies is shown below:



Snickers Cookies

Makes about 20.

63g Butter/Margarine
4 tbsp sugar
1 egg, beaten
150g plain (all-purpose) flour
2 Snickers bars, finely chopped.
Oil/Butter/Margarine for greasing

1. Preheat the oven to 190'C/375'F/gas 5/Fan 170'C.
2. Melt the butter or margarine in a saucepan. Stir in the sugar and leave to cool slightly.
3. Add the egg, flour and chocolate bars and form a lumpy dough.
4. Shape into about 20 small flat rounds, about 4cm/1.5" in diameter. Place on a greased baking (cookie) sheet. Bake in the oven for about 15-20 minutes until golden.
5. Cool slightly, then loosen with a fish slice and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.

These turned out more like rock cakes, they looked like shiny cakes instead of cookies, but they still tasted good. I think the lack of texture may have been caused by the fan oven, maybe they would be better in a conventional oven?

Bread and Butter Pudding

This was my first attempt at making something more complicated than an omelette. I found the recipe in a cookbook called "The Classic 1000 Student Recipes" (Buy in the UK or Buy in the USA) which I picked up at a shop in town for a bargain £2 ($3)! It has been a great book for learning the basics. Yes, I did need to be told how to boil an egg...















Here is the recipe I used for the bread and butter pudding:

Bread and Butter Pudding

Serves 4

4-6 slices of white bread
Butter or margarine
4 tbsp sugar
4 tbsp sultanas
2 mugs of milk
2 eggs
A few drops of vanilla essence/extract

1. Preheat oven to 180'C/350'F/Gas 4/Fan Oven 160'C.
2. Spread the bread with butter or margarine. Cut each slice into four triangles.
3. Line a medium-sized ovenproof dish with half the bread. Sprinkle with half the sugar and most of the fruit.
4. Top with the remaining bread triangles, arranged attractively on top. Scatter the remaining fruit over.
5. Beat the milk and eggs together with a fork and add a few drops of vanilla essence. Pour over the bread and sprinkle with the remaining sugar.
6. Leave to stand for 30 minutes before baking for the bread to absorb the liquid.
7. Bake in the oven for about 1 hour until golden and set.














I changed this recipe slightly by adding one packet of milk chocolate buttons in with the sultanas, and I buttered both sides of the bread instead of just one. My version was more like 6 portions than 4, and that's with a man's appetite! My Other Half (OH) enjoyed it very much, and ate the whole thing!

The second time I made bread and butter pudding I changed the recipe again by spreading one side of each slice of bread with raspberry jam, and adding a handful of dark chocolate chips.















I cannot eat the pudding myself, it is too rich for me, so I freeze portions of it for OH to defrost and eat at a later date. It freezes well if you wrap it in foil to keep the moisture, then just defrost and warm up in the oven before eating.

This is a good recipe to use up any leftover or slightly stale bread. We go to the supermarket at night and often manage to pick up loaves of bread for just 10p (15 cents), which makes for a very economical dessert!

~ Sakura Moon

Come and meet me and my reason for blogging!

Hi all (well all who are reading this blog at the moment, which currently is just me)!

On here I am known as 'Sakura Moon' (though will answer to most things 'Oi', 'Thingy', etc), and I am a  young woman from England. For 8 years I have been ruled by a disability and now I am starting to fight back and take control of my life once more. It will take time and effort but I will do it!

My disability means that I have many food sensitivities, most of which are listed to the right of this page. I thought that these meant that I could only eat the blandest and most boring of foods, beige foods I call them, but now that I have a big kitchen of my own I am learning differently! I have discovered how much I enjoy cooking, especially baking!

I have a recipe book and look for recipes online, but most contain ingredients that I cannot tolerate. As I looked through the various cooking blogs I realised that there are many recipes out there which aren't written down elsewhere, old family ones or from church cookbooks, that would be great to try, and there are many unpublished home chefs who have advice on how to make ingredient substitutions. There is a whole world of cooking wisdom out there if you just look for it!

I hope to learn many new recipes and make new friends on Blogger, and share with you my cooking triumphs and disasters!

Best wishes,

Sakura Moon