[Sca-cooks] OOP: Victoria Sponge Cake

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Some guy wrote:
>
> This sounds like something that would either be in Mrs. Beeton, possibly
> Fance's "Student's Technology of Breadmaking and Flour Confectionary",
> maybe Peck's "Art of Fine Baking", perhaps one or two others on my
> shelf. I'm not quite sure how to proceed, though, unless we assume
> (rightly or wrongly) that Mrs. Beeton, being herself Victorian,
> presented the Ur-cake, and take it from there. Whether or not Brown's
> Hotel uses a recipe like that I don't know, but I was under  the
> impression that presentation notwithstanding, Victoria Sponge was pretty
> much a basic preparation that would have only minor differences between
> examples. Sort of like how all pound cakes are a little bit different,
> but generally they're all slightly dense, fine-crumb, cream cakes with a
> similar degree of sweetness.
>
> Let's see what I can find; will try to post later this evening.

Well, okay, I was intrigued. It turns out there's no mention of Victoria
Sponge in Fance's or Peck's books, so Mrs. Beeton is probably the place
to check...

<does so...>

Now. There's a recipe webbed at
http://recipes.alastra.com/cakes/sponge03.html , allegedly a Victoria
Sponge, which appears to me to be pretty close to your basic
American-type cream yellow layer-cake, such as one might make for a
child's birthday, etc. Possibly a slight nod to French genoise sponge
recipes in the instructions to sift and fold in the flour. To me,
though, this is disqualified as any kind of sponge because instead of
beating the eggs to a sponge (hence the name) and folding them into the
creamed butter-sugar-flour amalgam, this uses self-rising flour and only
lightly beaten eggs which are simply mixed in, albeit gradually. In
other words, eggs do not provide the lift in the modern recipe, while in
Mrs. Beeton's they probably do, at least to some extent. Beeton's
appears to be a cross between pound cake and genoise.

You can look at the webbed, modern version for comparison, but here's
Beeton's, probably edited by some later hand:

Victoria Sandwiches

	Ingredients. -- 4 eggs, their weight in caster sugar, in butter, and in
flour, a pinch of salt, a layer of any kind of jam or marmalade.
	Mode. -- Beat the butter to a cream, add the flour, salt and sugar,
stir these ingredients well together, and add the eggs, which should be
previously whisked stiff. When the mixture has been well beaten for
about ten minutes, butter a sponge tin, pour in the batter, and bake in
a moderate oven for 20 minutes. Let it cool, cut it in two, and spread
one layer of the cake with a nice preserve; press the other half on top,
then cut it into long finger pieces; pile them in cross-bars on a glass
dish, and serve.
	Time. -- 20 minutes. Sufficient for 5 or 6 persons.

Okay, looking at this, I'm not sure why you are instructed to beat the
eggs stiff, then continue beating them with things like butter in such a
way as to lose a lot of the aeration. Maybe what happens is you lose
half of it, and get some back from the beaten butter, etc.

I'd try the Beeton recipe with cake flour if possible (this is probably
one of those cases where overbeating is supposed to destroy gluten,
rather than simply not developing it). Four eggs, nowadays, weigh
roughly eight ounces, give or take. If you want to use an electric
mixer, it should be pretty easy to tell when things are done: the
stiffly beaten whole eggs will be stiff, but also sort of a lemon-yellow
color. The complete batter is probably beaten enough when you can lift
up a spoonful of it and not leave much of a trail behind the spoon... in
other words, when it has lost all elasticity. A moderate oven is, what,
maybe 350 Fahrenheit?

You might want to sneak a few drops of vanilla extract into the batter.
If it were me, I'd try using strained raspberry jam, maybe strawberry,
and perhaps a French buttercream (egads, unsafe!!!) to cover it.
Buttercream is basically butter beaten up into a creamy goo with plenty
of confectioner's sugar, flavorings, and colorings, if any. (The sugar
proportion is measured by looking at the texture: the final product is
going to be sweet, but the frosting should not lose all its shine, nor
should it be too stiff. These are likely indicators that there's too
much sugar in it. French buttercream is that same buttercream with an
egg yolk or two beaten in for richness. (Usually one is plenty.)  The
sugar apparently preserves the yolks for a moderately long time. Do not
be tempted to use something like butter-flavored Crisco, or you'll start
to get into Twinkie filling territory.

Mmmmm! Golden sponge Cake!!! Creamy fi...

Gotta go...

Where's the entrance to that bloody rock? It was just here a minute ago...

Adamantius
--
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com

"It was so blatant that Roger threw at him.  Clemens gets away with
things that get other people thrown out of games.  As long as they
let him get away with it, it's going  to continue." -- Joe Torre, 9/98