For my husbands birthday, I made two different cakes. The first was a Chocolate Chiffon Cake (which I'm still trying to make work - will update with results once I really succeed!) because he has long asked for a light spongy kind of cake. The second was a cake I wanted to make so I could decorate it with icing.



So this is the second cake I made. A Victoria Sandwich with Lemon Buttercream Icing and a strawberry jam filling. I know the filling and icing don't really go together, but I had limited ingredients so whatever's there will have to work.



Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:
175g butter, at room temp
175g caster sugar
3 eggs, beaten
175g self-raising flour
pinch of salt

Method:

1. preheat oven to 180C/gas mark 4
2. grease two 8inch sponge tins and line with grease proof paper
3. cream butter and sugar in a mixing bowl until pale, light and fluffy
4. add egg a little at a time, beating well after each addition
5. sift the flour and salt and carefully add to the mixture, folding in with spatula
6. divide the mixture between tins and smooth over with spatula
7. place on the same shelf in center of oven and bake for 25-30min until well risen, golden brown and beginning to shrink from sides of tin
8. remove from oven and allow to stand for 1 min
9. loosen the cakes from around the edge of the tins using a palette knife. turn the cakes out on a tea towel, remove paper and invert them onto a wire rack - avoids wire rack line on top of cake
10. when completely cool, sandwich together with jam.

review:
traditionally the sandwich is decorated by sprinkling icing sugar over the cake
for the filling, other options are buttercream icing (but a bit sweet) are whipped cream sweetened slightly with a bit sugar.
for the topping, you can use buttercream icing or even melted chocolate

I'll add the recipe for basic buttercream icing

225g butter, softened
1 tbsp cream or milk
350g icing sugar

1. beat butter and cream
2. gradually sift in icing sugar
3. beat until smooth

I replaced the cream/milk with 1tbsp lemon juice and added a few drops of yellow colouring to make a lemon buttercream icing.