White Christmas Victoria Sponge Cake

This was supposed to be Rose's 

White Christmas Peppermint Cake

which 

Marie made and you can see

how it is meant to be.

When she mentioned this cake

could easily be adapted to other flavors

I wondered if finally I could

duplicate my wedding cake.

Happy to say this is even better.

The cake batter Rose has us make

is a butter cake dream.

Honestly, it is the most beautiful,

fluffy batter imaginable.

Super simple to mix up, too.

Egg whites, sugar, cake flour, baking powder,

milk, salt, butter and extracts.

The frosting is divine.

Buttercream from a white chocolate custard base

transforms into a fluffy frosting.

I used Lindt Classic White Chocolate bars.

Here's where I veered off course.

The wedding cake was almond with raspberry filling

and white buttercream frosting.

I forgot to buy raspberry jam but had a new jar 

of strawberry.

I started remembering all those Great British Bake Off Victoria Sponges

and visions of Mary Berry began to swirl 'round my head.

I looked up her recipe and it's the same sort of basic ingredients,

minus the extracts  and butter ( hence "sponge")

but with choice of jams,

and powdered sugar showered over instead of frosting.

Adjusting the almond extract for the peppermint 

and spreading warmed jam

between the layers before frosting 

substituted easily.

We really love this cake

and I can see this next year made at

Christmas 

in it's peppermint form decorated with

marching soldiers among the candy cane crunch.

They've been in storage since my

children were little.

~

The Baking Bible

by

Rose Levy Beranbaum