Victoria Sponge Cake

Also known as Victoria Sandwich, this was supposedly a favourite of Queen Victoria. This is likely why it seems to be strongly associated with tea. As in the British afternoon snack time. So High Tea for the Queen, and Afternoon Tea for the rest of us.

Victoria Sponge, a.k.a. Victoria Sandwich

Most versions of this seem to favour just strawberries, but I mixed in some raspberries as well. Actually very easy to make, and looks nice. It is a bit drier than I thought it would be, but I think I was confusing it in my mind with Angle Food Cake. In any case, the berry filling and cream make up for it!

Next Time: maybe try different berries, and a different type of jam.

Me: 7/10
SO: 9/10
SSO: 8/10

Two layer whole wheat chocolate cake with creamy chocolate frosting

I felt like something yummy for dessert. I almost made Chef Michael Smith's peanut butter brownies. Why not?  The recipe called for 1 cup of flour, and.....I ran out. Ooops.  Like seriously, who runs out of flour.  I forgot to put it on the list. I had just come from the grocery store too. I did however have whole wheat flour. It got me thinking, what is a dessert better suited to whole wheat flour? Well generally you can just substitute 7/8th of a cup of whole wheat to 1 cup all-purpose. That doesn't mean it will be a good substitute however. While looking around for ideas I thought why not just go for a good old chocolate cake. And if you're going to make a chocolate cake, you need to have a good frosting, and of course two layers. By the way, the hot water helps the cocoa to dissolve and also makes the batter nice and smooth. It will look thinner than you might be used to, but really it works!

Two layers of chocolate cake ready to go

So what's the best thing about a two layer cake? The extra icing in the middle of course! Well that, and I get to use my cake top remover, a.k.a. cake slicer. Not only do you get nice flat layers, but you get to eat the part you cut off.  I like this frosting quite a bit. The slight orange flavour is awesome. Edit: I tried part white flour and part whole wheat, also very good. I was walking by the dairy section at the grocery store, and saw the cream cheese.  So there is an alternate cream cheese icing recipe that also works very well. Notice the icing recipes are almost identical except the milk is replaced with cream cheese.

Next Time: Maybe try a different frosting, although this one is really good

Me: 9/10
SO: 9/10
SSO: 10/10