Victoria sandwich with fresh cream and homemade strawberry jam

Serves three Ingredients: For the Victoria sponges:

n 4 large eggs

n 8 oz self raising flour

n 8 oz butter

n 8 oz caster sugar

n 2 level tsp baking powder For the strawberry jam:

1 punnet of strawberries, hulled and halved

n 4 tbsp of sugar

n juice of ½ lemon

n fresh whipping cream

Method:

Strawberry jam: In a heavy based pan, place the strawberries, sugar and lemon juice. Slowly bring to the boil. Mash some of the strawberries as you stir occasionally. Once the mixture is boiling and there are bubbles forming on the surface, turn down the heat so that the hot mixture is simmering. Let it simmer for eight minutes. Then turn off the heat and leave the jam to one side. If you feel that the jam is still quite runny then just let it simmer for longer.

Victoria sponge cake: Preheat the oven to 180°C/ Gas mark 4. Then prepare two cake tins of about 20cm each, by greasing them and placing parchment paper in the base.

Sieve the baking powder and the self-raising flour together in a bowl. Then place the butter and caster sugar in another bowl and cream together until the mixture has turned a pale yellow colour.

At this point, add one egg at a time to the creamed mixture, along with a tablespoon of the sieved flour, so that the egg will easily get incorporated into the mixture without curdling. Do this until all the eggs have been added to the mixture. Then fold in the sieved self-raising flour.

Divide the mixture between the two cake tins and bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes. Check that the cakes are cooked by pressing the centre of the cakes, they should just spring back.

Leave the cakes to cool slightly in the tins before extracting them and placing on a wire rack.

Once the cakes are cool to the touch, spread the strawberry jam onto one surface. Then spread or pipe the whipped cream on top and gently place the other cake onto this.

Place the cake on a lovely cake dish and serve with tea.