Mary Berry's Victoria Sponge Cake - My Gorgeous Recipes (2024)

Published: May 30, 2022 · Modified: Mar 28, 2023 by Daniela Apostol · This post may contain affiliate links · 2 Comments

Mary Berry's Victoria Sponge Cake with buttercream and jam or Victoria Sandwich Cake, a truly classic British dessert for a traditional tea party. Moist and rich sponges, silky vanilla buttercream and your favourite jam, what a treat that is! Super easy to make, and heavenly delicious!

Sometimes the simple recipes are the ones that win everybody's heart. And this easy dessert has been the nation's favourite sweet treat for quite a while now. Named after Queen Victoria, the sandwich cake is just that: 2 sponge cakes sandwiched together with jam or jam and buttercream.

It is said that this was the Queen's favourite dessert, and it was usually served together with others sweet treats and sandwiches at the famous afternoon tea parties.

The cake uses equal amounts of butter, sugar and flour, but I always go for less sugar, as I think together with the cream and jam the cake is more than sweet. Self-raising flour works best here, the cakes rise beautifully, and they are fluffy and moist.

I still add a bit of baking powder regardless of the type of flour used, just to ensure a light fluffy texture. I actually use the same technique for most bakes, and it works every single time.

Using buttercream is optional, although it adds silkiness and a lovely vanilla touch to the cake, so I recommend it. Feel free to use any jam of your choice, or marmalade.

Ingredients needed for the sponges

• self-raising flour
• butter -soften, but not melted, unsalted butter works best
• granulated sugar - or caster sugar also ok
• eggs - I used 4 large eggs, use 5 is you use small eggs
• baking powder

• vanilla extract - or any other extract of your choice
• icing sugar - or confectioner's sugar
• milk - to loosen up the batter
• jam - red jam is the popular one for this cake, bur feel free to use any jam you have

Step-by-step photos and instructions

• in a bowl, beat the soften butter with the granulated sugar until it becomes creamy, then add the eggs one by one and beat well

Not to panic if the batter looks like it curdled at this point, it's absolutely fine, it won't affect the consistency of the cake.

• add the sifted flour, baking powder and vanilla extract, and beat well to get a smooth batter.

• grease and flour 2 cake tins of 19 cm (7.48 inches), then divide the batter evenly between the tins, and bake at 180 degrees Celsius (390 Fahrenheit) for about 20 minutes or until the cakes are golden and well risen, and a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean
• to make the buttercream, beat together the icing sugar, soften butter, vanilla extract and milk until silky and creamy.
• to assemble the cake, spread the buttercream on the bottom of one cake, then spread the jam, and top with the other cake.

Ans that's all we need to do. If you use 2 cake tins, the Victoria Sponge Cake is ready in about 30 minutes from scratch. After that, allow the cakes to cool, sandwich them together, and it's all ready to serve, not need to refrigerate.

Expert tips

The best way to get equal cakes in height is to divide the batter in half, and bake the cakes in two baking tins that have the same size. In saves you time, otherwise you have to wait for one cake to bake, then bake the second cake.

Or, if you have a larger cake tin, bake it all at once, and cut it in half with a sharp knife. If you have a smaller cake tin, I would not recommend baking it all at once, the middle might not bake properly, while the top is golden already.

The cake tins I used have a size of 19cm (7.48 inches). They are medium-seized tins, but you can easily cut 8 generous cake slices of out the cake. For us, that's more than enough, but, depending on the number of people to be served, you might need to increase the amount of ingredients.

Other desserts by Mary Berry

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