Wednesday 6 August 2014

Lovely lemony victoria sponge!

Great British Bake off starts tonight! I can't wait!


In honour of the bestest cakey show on TV I've decided that every Wednesday (ish!) whilst it's on, I'll share one of my favorite recipes... Which also means I'm going to have to bake at least once a week so I can take pics to go with my recipes, yay!!

So, today it's my lovely lemony victoria sponge...
(sorry if the photo quality's a bit ropey, these are old pics that I found whilst deciding what recipe to do)



Ingredients:

180g self-raising flour
180g butter
180 g caster sugar
3 eggs
2 small lemons
200g cream cheese
3 tbsps lemon curd
Lots of icing sugar
  1. Preheat the oven to 190°C, and grease and line two sandwich tins
  2. Sift the flour into a large bowl and add the butter, caster sugar and eggs, beat it all together until light and fluffy.
  3. Grate the rind and squeeze the juice from one of the lemons and whisk in, then divide the mixture evenly between the two tins. Bake for about 20-25 minutes until golden and firm to the touch, and the cakes are starting to pull away from the sides of the tins. Turn out on to a wire rack, remove the baking paper and let them cool.
  4. Grate the zest from the second lemon. Beat the cream cheese and zest together, then beat in enough sifted icing sugar until it's light and spreadable. 
  5. Sandwich the cakes together with a third of the mixture, adding a lovely dollop of lemon curd, then spread the rest of the cream cheese frosting on the topYou can also add sprinkles, lemon zest, sugar lemons, or anything else you fancy on top! Or you can shove all of the frosting in the middle of the sandwich, and dust icing sugar over the top - this is slightly less fussing, and easier if you're baking with kids!!

If you're feeling extra specially fancy, candied lemons are amazing on top... I usually cheat and buy them... But here's some instructions if you fancy trying it yourself!

You'll need:
2 lemons
225g caster sugar
225ml water

  1. Rinse and 'top and tail' the lemons and with a sharp knife, vertically peel strips between the top and the tail. 
  2. Place the peel into a small saucepan and cover with water. Over a medium heat, bring the water to a simmer for about 10 minutes. Drain and set the peel aside.
  3. In the same pan, add the sugar and the 225ml of water. Once again heat until the sugar dissolves and you have a syrup. Add the peel and allow to simmer for about 15 minutes.
  4. Prepare a drying area by placing some baking paper under a wire cooling rack. Drain the syrup and place the peel on to the cooling rack. Sprinkle with caster sugar to coat thoroughly. Allow to cool and dry out completely.
  5. Store in an airtight container or use immediately.

Enjoy!

Ms Bee
xxx

2 comments:

  1. That looks wonderful, I've bookmarked your post should I ever get a moment to bake!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh, please let me know if you do give it a go, would be lovely to know if you love it too! xxx

    ReplyDelete