The Great Swift Bake off: Round 4 - Victoria Sponge

This month in the great swift bake off it's time to call in the W.I. - it's the Victoria Sponge round. This was the most restrictive brief to date and the results were all of a high standard!

I used a 3 egg sponge mix as a base, using equal weight eggs (weight with shells), flour, butter and castor sugar. I used 1 large egg and 3 bantam eggs, and also enriched it with two extra bantam yolks; can you tell Lemon has been off her lay? I also added a teaspoon of baking powder, 1/4 teaspoon vanilla powder and 1/8 teaspoon of salt. For the filling I made a strawberry jam with equal weights strawberries to sugar and then added a good splosh of sloe gin at the end to add to the flavour.

Being a man I cracked out the power tools, beat my butter and sugar into submission and then whipped the whole lot until it submitted into being a fluffy mass.

I then split it between two tins, ready for baking.

Once cooled it was time to assemble. I went a little wild and added rosemary flowers as well as the usual jam, cream and castor sugar (oh and edible glitter). I studded the top with the flowers before sprinkling the remaining petals over the jam.

The result: third of six to take the overall lead.