Ms B's Baking: Victoria Sponge

You may have read my previous post A very Mary Berry afternoon were Laura Taylor and I made some lovely finger sandwiches. This post is the last installment from the day, so I thought I'd end with how to make a Victoria Sponge.
First of all a word for the lovely Laura Taylor:

"Spending an afternoon with Ms B baking a classic was fabulous. I have always wanted to bake a a double layer cake and never seen how, so where better to start other than a Victoria sponge. Ms B was full of tips and simple advice that anyone can understand and can take on in their own kitchens, even down to cracking that egg! Thank you for sharing your baking tips with me. Please come again."

I chose the recipe from Baking - 100 everyday recipes I got given this book as a present and I am ashamed to admit that this is the first time I've used it. After coming across this little simple book again I have promised myself to try out more recipes from it.

Ingredients:

175 g/6oz butter
175g/6oz caster sugar
3 eggs
175g/6oz self-raising flour
Pinch of salt
Jam, double cream and icing sugar to serve

Method:

As all ways I measure out all the ingredients first and pre-heated the oven to 180 Making sure the butter and eggs are at room temperature. This was made much more fun with my baking companion.Laura was amazed at my measuring skills when I plonked the butter in the bowl then randomly cut off a bit and it came to the exact weight we wanted. 'Amazing!' Laura said, 'Pot luck' I replied.

Fist we mixed the sugar and butter together with a spoon until light and fluffy. We beat the eggs in a mug and even added a little vanilla extract. Laura was concerned about not getting this right but told her that's why we were doing it in a mug first and if some shell does sneak in there you can get it out easily with the shell.

We then added in the flour and eggs bit by bit until all incorporated.

We used an 8" sandwich tins and lined them with parchment paper and stuck them to the pan with butter. Laura liked using these tins as it saved the task of cutting the layers evenly.

We tried our best to evenly distribute the mix between the tins and then we continued to shake the tins until the mix reached all the edges and looked even. You can use a spatula to do this but it isn't as fun :)

Place in the oven for 25-30 minutes.

Once ready we took it out the oven to cool then started on our sandwiches.

It doesn't state in this recipe to add cream but we really wanted it :)

We used a small tube of double cream and used an electric hand mixer to thicken it up. Laura laughed when I told her that before I owned a hand mixer I used to use a blender to to this, it really works!