Victoria Tea Cake

Alright, alright, I know it is Lent and we aren't supposed to be gorging ourselves on all manner of sweet things, but I am making an exception for this lovely cake because there is no frosting on it.  Goodness knows that no frosting on a cake automatically throws it into the realm of austere (and therefore penitential) and rather boring, no?  But let me just tell you -- this is probably the first cake I've ever made that Emilia devoured.  Even Michael noticed, 'Wow, she's actually going to eat the whole thing.'  (The 'whole thing' would be her slice -- and not actually the whole cake.)  But it is true, the girl loved her 'Torian Sandwich' and has already been asking to make it again.  I'm shocked.

The recipe comes from My Kitchen Table: Mary Berry's 100 Cakes and Bakes, but this is not actually where I found it.  I found it on that scourge that is Facebook.  When Michael goes out of town, I seem to spend a lot of time on-line, very late at night, doing nothing in particular, when I really just ought to be in bed.  And last month when he was in St. Louis, I sat up one night looking at who knows what, and ended up with a fat-wad of 'likes' on my Facebook page.  Anyway, one of those 'likes' (and probably the only one worth a damn) is Boden (you're shocked, I know), and they are the ones from whence I got the recipe for 'The Perfect Victoria Sandwich'.

The cake is a breeze to make as it is essentially a pound cake.  You know: one pound butter, one pound eggs, one pound sugar, one pound flour, all mixed up.  You just need to make sure that all ingredients are at room temperature.  I suppose that you could easily swap out the raspberry jam for whatever floats your boat -- lemon curd, for example, but I have currently gone anti-yellow.  Every picture I take in our kitchen these days looks yellow and it makes me want to hurl.  One of Emilia's favorite things to do is to take pictures with the camera, and I'm fairly convinced that she 'fixed' it somehow so that all the pictures look nasty.  Governor has turned into one of her favorite subjects, and we now have nearly a hundred yellow photos of his hairy ol' can to look at.  Seriously, she thought it was hilarious.  'Look!  I take a picture of Governor's bum! hehehaha!' Or, it could be that Michael put two extra tubes of nasty ol' fluorescent lighting in the kitchen, as per my request, and since then the kitchen makes me nauseous and grumpy.  Everything I cook now seems to look revolting.  Every time I ask him to please please take them out, he rolls his eyes and calls me an eejit.  'But you asked me to put them in!'  Yes, well, I digress.

We had the cake after dinner (which is my least favorite time to have cake, particularly of this varietal), but Michael and Emilia seemed to be happy as clams, so who am I to complain?  But really, I prefer mine in the afternoon with a big cup of tea that is so hot I inevitably burn my mouth and can't taste the cake anyway.

The Perfect Victoria Sandwich

225g (8oz) unsalted butter, at room temperature
225g (8oz) caster sugar
4 large eggs, at room temperature
225g (8oz) self-raising flour
2 level teaspoons baking powder
about 4 tablespoons strawberry or raspberry jam
a little confectioners' sugar to dust on the top

Heat the oven to 350F.  Butter and line 2 cake pans.  Set aside.

Using your heavy-duty mixer, combine butter, sugar, eggs, flour, and baking soda.  Mix until nicely blended, but do not over mix.  Divide the batter between the 2 cake pans, and plonk in the oven for about 25 minutes.  They should rise nicely and look a lovely shade of gold on the tops.  Let the cakes cool in the pans for at least 10 minutes.  (I took mine out after about 5 and was a bit sorry for it.)  Once they are completely cool, sandwich the layers with your jam (or what have you), and dust your sugar on the top.  Then stand back and marvel.  Serve when you feel like it -- using your best British accent all the while, if you please.