Farmhouse Orange Victoria Sandwich for the Weekly Bake Off

I was really pleased with Amy's selection for this week's Bake Off - Mary Berry's Ultimate Cake Book was the first Baking book I bought, back in 1995 (it was first published in 1994 and by the time I bought a copy it was already on its eighth reprint). The very first recipe I did was her small all in one Victoria Sandwich, and consequently the very first cake tins I purchased were Silverwood 7" sandwich tins. They have seen many, many outings over the years, by way of this cake and the Sunday Best Chocolate Fudge Cake, also from the same book. I still have them and used them for this recipe.

Interestingly, in flicking through 'Ultimate Cake Book', I caught sight of an Orange Victoria Sandwich, which is practically the same recipe as this one (size aside), with the exception of the filling, where Mary instructed that it should be 'about 4 tablespoons of orange mamalade and a little caster sugar'. Hmm, not sure about that one. I certainly loved the butercream based orange filling used in this version, and I'm not sure that using totally marmalade would appeal to modern tastes now used to Buttercream and Frostings more in the American style. Well, maybe not mine, at least.

So, my familiarity with the recipe and ingredients meant that I was relatively confident going in to this one. It's a simple all-in-one cake which produces fantastic results. Mike loved it and wanted to take it into work today. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of leaving it on the worktop overnight (under cling film). We found that the cats had investigated it overnight, and while they had ultimately decided it was not for them, it was not before they sampled one of the sides. :-(

Anyway, here's the recipe:

Ingredients (makes one 7" cake):
175g softened unsalted butter
175g light muscovado sugar
3 large eggs
175g self raising flour
1 1/2 level tspns baking powder
zest of an orange

Filling
40g softened unsalted butter
100g icing sugar, sifted
1-2 tbspn fine cut marmalade
icing sugar for dusting

Preheat the oven to 160 fan / 180 conventional / gas 4.

Grease and base line two 7" (18 cm) sandwich tins.

Place all the sponge ingredients into a large bowl and beat well until smooth.

Divide the mixture between the tins and level the top.

Bake for 25 - 30 minutes until coming away from sides and springy to touch.

Turn out onto wire rack and allow to cool.

Make the filling by blending the ingredients together until smooth. Mine was a little stiff so I added a tablespoon of milk to loosen it slightly. You want a nice spreading consistency, but one which will not slip down the side.

Spread the filling on the base layer, place the top layer, and then decorate with a little sifted icing sugar. Note the schoolgirl error - I left the 'top' layer top side down on the wire rack, leading to line marks left in the top. Doh. At least it still tasted great!