Happy Easter! Mini Egg Victoria Sponge Cake

Happy Easter to all!

I baked a traditional Victoria Sponge double-layered cake, added buttercream to the top and decorated it with mini eggs. A perfect Easter treat after our lovely Sunday roast!

The mini eggs were a perfect touch and it really went down a treat in my household. It was completely gone within 24 hours!

For this cake I used my standard Victoria Sponge recipe. I have reposted it here for you to enjoy. Click here if you want to see the original recipe!

Ingredients:
200g Butter
200g Caster Sugar
200g Self Raising Flour
1 tsp Baking Powder
1 tbsp Vanilla Extract (optional)
4 Eggs
2tbsp Milk
Filling;
140g Icing Sugar
100g Butter
1 tsp Vanilla Extract (optional)
Raspberry Jam (in this recipe I used redcurrant!)


Method:
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees and line two 20cm cake tins with butter.
2. Beat the butter and sugar together, then add the flour and eggs and beat until fully mixed. Add the milk if necessary and vanilla extract if desired.
3. Spread evenly between the tins and bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until an inserted knife comes out clean. Leave to cool upside down before decorating.
4. For the filling; mix the sugar and butter together. Spread over the bottom of one of the sponges. Spread the jam on the bottom of the second sponge.
5. Place the sponge with the jam on top of the butter icing sponge.
6. Decorate with more buttercream on top, and place the mini eggs on top as appropriate. There can be as many or as little as you like! You can also place cream on the sides of the cake, it depends on what look you are going for.

Enjoy!

Traditional Victoria Sponge

This has to be one of the prettiest cakes I have made to date, and it is traditionally British which makes it better!

Victoria Sponge Sandwich Cake with Fruits

Ingredients:
200g Butter
200g Caster Sugar
200g Self Raising Flour
1 tsp Baking Powder
1 tbsp Vanilla Extract (optional)
4 Eggs
2tbsp Milk
Filling;
140g Icing Sugar
100g Butter
1 tsp Vanilla Extract (optional)
Raspberry Jam

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees and line two 20cm cake tins with butter.
2. Beat the butter and sugar together, then add the flour and eggs and beat until fully mixed. Add the milk if necessary and vanilla extract if desired.
3. Spread evenly between the tins and bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until an inserted knife comes out clean. Leave to cool upside down before decorating.
4. For the filling; mix the sugar and butter together. Spread over the bottom of one of the sponges. Spread the jam on the bottom of the second sponge.
5. Place the sponge with the jam on top of the butter icing sponge.
6. Decorate with berry fruits (in this example, raspberries, strawberries and blueberries were used) if desired and finish with icing sugar over the top.

Raspberry Jam Almond Tartlets

These biscuit tartlets are worth making and they look nice and smart too.

Ingredients:
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
90g ground almonds
1/4 cup packed light-brown sugar
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp almond extract
Rasperry Jam

Method:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees farenheight, 180 degrees celsius or gas mark 4. Whisk together flour, cinnamon, salt and baking powder, set aside. In a separate bowl, mix the brown sugar and ground almonds.  

2. Mix together the butter and caster sugar. Mix in egg, then blend in vanilla and almond extract.

3. Mix in the almond mixture, then with mixer set on low speed, slowly add in the flour mixture and mix until it is all fully combined.

4. Dust the work surface with flour, and get the combined mixture (should be a dough) and roll out with a rolling pin, into 1/8 to 1/6-inch thickness.

5. Cut into heart shapes using a cookie cutter, then using a smaller heart shape cookie cutter, cut smaller hearts into the centers of half of the hearts.

6. Carefully transfer to parchment paper lined baking sheets (you can run a sharp knife or pastry scaper under cookies to help lift them if needed!), spacing cookies 1-inch apart.

7. Bake in preheated oven 10 - 12 minutes until edges are lightly golden.

8. Cool on baking sheet several minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

9. Spread strawberry jam over whole hearts, and place the cookies with the centres cut out over the tops. 10. Store in an airtight container.

Recipe altered from: http://www.cookingclassy.com/2014/01/linzer-cookies/