[Sca-cooks] OOP: Victoria Sponge Cake

[Pixel, Queen of Cats]

On Thu, 12 Jul 2001 Elysant1 at aol.com wrote:

> In a message dated 7/5/01 9:16:19 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
> pixel at hundred-acre-wood.com writes:
>
> << If that's the buttercream recipe you use. I use one that has you add your
>  sugar syrup to the beaten egg whites, then add the whipped butter by
>  spoonsful until it becomes buttercream. Absolutely amazing stuff--it's
>  like satin. Not what I use for anything complicated, as it is a bit too
>  soft to handle overmuch, but lovely for simple piping, and divine for
>  filling. >>
>
>
> I have never seen mention anywhere of this type of buttercream used on a
> British Victoria Sandwich. :-) We do not add eggs to what we call "butter
> icing".  As I said in an earlier post, and as Vara also said (IIRC), butter
> icing in Britain is just icing sugar and butter or cream with a flavouring
> such as vanilla essence added to it.  Some people add a little (like a
> teaspoon or so) of milk or cream into it also.
>
> Elysant


There are many types of icings using butter--what you describe is just the
simplest (and, in fact, the first kind I learnt to make). The cakes I make
tend to be for fancy parties (weddings, showers, that sort of thing) and a
straight butter/sugar icing is too heavy. I won't dismiss a simple
buttercream made with butter and sugar--certainly it's preferable to using
a white vegetable fat--but it isn't really up to what I need it to do/be.

That said, I'm in Minnesota, where apparently the mainstream concept of
cake and frosting is limited to either a box mix and a can of ready-made,
or the bath sponges smeared with sugared fat and airbrushed with cartoon
characters that you get at the local supermarkets. *shudder*

Margaret FitzWilliam