Monday, September 1, 2008

Victorian Sponge Cake with Vanilla-Pear Jam Filling



You know one of those days when you get a painful urge to eat something, but you realize that if you made an entire recipe of it, you would have to finish it all by yourself and live regretfully for the next two months or so? Well, I had one of those days today; I craved some crumbly Victorian sponge cake. Now, Victorian sponge cakes usually require two 8-inch cake pans that you bake separate sponge cakes in and then sandwich together with your favourite jam and top off with a some icing sugar. It goes delicious with a cup of warm Earl Grey whilst sitting out on the deck and enjoying the sunny dreary err... "it can't quite make up its mind" Seattle weather.



I used Delia's Smith all-in-one Sponge Cake recipe with some French Vanilla-Pear Jam I picked up at Williams-Sonoma a while back, but instead of using two 8-inch round cake pans, I halved the recipe and used a regular 8-inch square pan. When it cooled down, I cut that into half and sandwiched them together to yield a 4x8 Victorian sponge cake... well, not quite Victorian perhaps, I would dub it the Cubician Sponge. I added a teensy bit of brandy to the pear jam and layered it on, yielding a wonderful light and crumbly cake with a delightfully tipsy filling.

Note: I didn't include the recipe, you can click through the link and support Delia at her online website.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mmmm....I could literally taste it from the picture...

Anonymous said...

i'm really excited to try this! awesome blog btw!

Anonymous said...

That looks lovely! Like a proper cake for a lady who lunches... or "afternoon teas".

murphy said...

The cake looks delicious... and so charming with the china!