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. 

Upside Down Peaches and Cream Cake

The letter for this month's AlphaBakes is U and my thoughts immediately turned to an upside down cake. I decided to make something a little different to a traditional pineapple upside down cake and came across this recipe on BBC Good Food. It's a simple sponge recipe topped with peaches and filled with a clotted cream filling. The sponge was light and moist and I loved the peaches and cream combination. It was so good that I made the cake again shortly after with different fruits which I will blog about later. 

As mentioned, I'm entering this to AlphaBakes which is hosted by myself this month and co hosted by Caroline from Caroline Makes. The letter is U for upside down cake. 

I'm also sending this to Made with Love Mondays hosted by Javelin Warrior where the idea is to make everything from scratch. 

 toss peaches in brown sugar 

 arrange peaches in a single layer then cover with cake batter 

 spread a generous layer of clotted cream filling on the plain cake then place the peach-topped cake on top. 

 

Recipe from BBC Good Food 

Clotted Cream & Strawberry tart and cookies

I'm sure you've noticed that I love entering baking/blogging challenges so when I saw the Best of British Challenge on Chocolate Log Blog who is hosting this month I could hardly say no! Fiona from London Unattached and Karen from Lavender and Lovage came up with this brilliant challenge that will run for 6 months. Each month, a county or region around the UK is selected. To enter, blog about your interpretation of a recipe or dish from that region. The challenge is sponsored by New World Appliances and there is a prize of a £50 Amazon voucher. 

This month it's Cornwall and the first two things I thought of were clotted cream and strawberries. A quick search on google led me to a company that produces clotted cream and strawberry cookies but no recipe so I decided to make my own! It's a variation on a shortbread and I think the proportions still need some tweaking but I was quite pleased with the final result. 

In addition to the flower cookies, I also decided to make some mini tarts filled with clotted cream and fresh strawberry. These cookies/tarts are quite rich as they have butter and clotted cream but were absolutely delicious! There is a faint hint of strawberry in the cookie - I think I will have to add more next time.  Personally I preferred the tarts as I loved the 'extra' clotted cream and fresh strawberry. 

I'm also entering this to Tea Time Treats hosted by Kate from What Kate Baked and Karen from Lavender and Lovage as the theme this month is summer fruits. 

And to the one ingredient challenge hosted by Nazima from Working London Mummy and co-hosted by Laura from How to Cook Good Food.  The theme for June is strawberry.

As strawberries are in season, I'm also entering them to Simple and in Season created by Ren from Fabulicious Food and guest hosted this month by Laura from How to Cook Good Food. 

On to the recipe..... 

 Fresh strawberries, clotted cream, butter and freeze dried strawberries (I found it in Waitrose) 

 Mix the butter and clotted cream

 Adding the freeze dried strawberries at the end - such a pretty colour but turned brown after baking :( 

 I used my mini tart tray

 and cut some flower cookies 

 fill with clotted cream

 top with a fresh strawberry

 my new mini cake stand :) 

 cookies... 

.. or tarts? 

An original recipe by bakingaddict

100g butter, softened 

100g clotted cream

100g caster sugar

200g flour

50g cornflour

5g freeze dried strawberries (I would recommend using the whole tube which is 10g for a stronger strawberry flavour)

• Preheat the oven to 170C.
• Mix the butter and clotted cream in a medium sized bowl. 
• Add the caster sugar, flour and cornflour.
• Mix well. The dough will be slightly wet and sticky at this point.
• Stir in the freeze dried strawberries. 
• Chill the dough in the fridge for about 30 minutes until firm.
• Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface and cut using cookie cutters. 
• To make the mini tarts, I used a round cutter and pressed the dough into the mini tart tray. 
• Bake in the oven for approximately 8 - 12 minutes (the mini tarts needed an extra minute or two). 
• If you made the tarts, fill with a dollop of clotted cream and top with a fresh strawberry.

Check out Rodda's 101 excuses for clotted cream if you have any left over!

Disclaimer: This post was not sponsored by Rodda's or anyone else. All opinions expressed are my own.