Mini Victoria Sponge

Today is J's birthday. I made a special birthday brunch which I will blog about soon. I asked him what his favourite cake is and he said Victoria Sponge. We are going away for the weekend to celebrate so I decided to make a mini Victoria sponge as it's only the 2 of us eating it. I used the tried and tested method of weighing the eggs in their shells and adding in the same weight in flour, butter and sugar. I also added in a some vanilla bean paste. As I was pressed for time, I sandwiched the sponge with clotted cream (his favourite) and fresh strawberries. It made for a very impressive mini cake as I managed to get 4 layers out of 2 cakes. The cake was absolutely delicious and J is very happy :) 

Happy Birthday J!! 

I'm sending this to the Biscuit Barrel Challenge hosted by Laura from I'd Much Rather Bake Than... The theme this month is favourites which is perfect as this is J's favourite cake and it's one of my all time favourites too as you just can't beat a good Victoria Sponge. It's a mini cake so it should fit in a large biscuit barrel!

I'm also sending it to Treat Petite hosted by Kat from the Baking Explorer and Stuart from Cakeyboi. The theme this month is Who will you bake for? in conjunction with World Baking Day on 18th May 2014. Well I've baked this specially for J's birthday so I hope it will count! It's a very large individual portion but it's definitely a mini cake.

Finally to Made with Love Mondays hosted by Javelin Warrior. The cake is made from scratch and with lots of love!

 My new mini springform tin 

 I used my food processor to make the cake batter 

 Looks good! 

 ready to bake 

 fresh from the oven

 place some clotted cream on one layer 

 add a layer of fresh strawberries 

 continue until you have a 4 layer cake! 

 I got some cute smiley face candles 

 we had to cut it 2 layers at a time as it's too tall! 

2 eggs - mine weighed 135g

135g butter

135g self raising flour

135g caster sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste

clotted cream

fresh strawberries

2 x mini springform tin - 12cm or 4.5inches in diameter 

• Preheat oven to 180C
• Place the eggs, butter, sugar, flour and vanilla bean paste in a food processor and mix until you get a smooth batter.
• Divide into 2 mini springform tins (or bake one at a time if you only have 1 tin like me) and bake for about 18-22 minutes until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. 
• Allow to cool completely before decorating.
• Divide each cake into 2 even layers and add clotted cream and fresh strawberries between each layer.