GBBO Translation: Victoria Sandwich
Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you've all had some lovely and festive celebrations with the people you love most! Over the last month or so, we've been fortunate enough to catch up with so many of our friends and family to share laughter, memories, and (so much!) great food. Even though I haven't been posting regular updates here for you, I've been hard at work making great messes in my kitchen and planning where to take this blog and my fine readers over the next year.
As much as I enjoy sharing original recipes with you, I can't deny the fact that those posts do not tend to see as much traffic as I would like. I may still do a few now and then (I know I have an update for my chocolate chip cookies in the works), but it is very obvious to me that what the people (or perhaps, web crawlers and bots) want are more posts where I try my hand at the Great British Bake Off/Baking Show technical challenges. Even when I took several months away from Beyond the Box, I noticed I was still getting page views fairly consistently, particularly on the Tiramisu Sandwich Biscuits that I translated from a GBBO special episode. It is far and way my most popular post.
But you don't care about the finer points of managing a blog! You're here to read about tantalizing British baked goods to see if you can make them yourself (and I'm sure a couple of you are hoping I will fail miserably and you can laugh at my shortcomings. Never fear, I'm sure it's coming! And I promise I will be honest with you when it does.)
You guys, I'm such a nerd. To prepare for the task at hand, I have compiled a spreadsheet of all the technical challenges, which season and episode they appeared in (with both the original British series numbers and the thoroughly messed up American season numbers), a link to the recipe and the amount of time given in the challenge. All so I can present you with the most accurate information possible. It's like good news reporting meets a science class lab report, but the results are so, so much tastier than newsprint and beakers of sulfuric acid. (If newsprint and beakers of caustic chemicals are your thing, I mean no offense, but this might not be the cooking blog for you...)
Like many Americans, I'm sure, when I first started watching GBBO, I had never heard of a Victoria Sandwich cake, but when I saw what the bakers were showing, I was intrigued. It had considerably less frosting than how an American imagines a cake, and I'm always a fan of jam with baked goods, and raspberries are one of my most favorite fruits of all time. So how do I get to taste this charming confection for myself without spending money I don't have on an international plane ticket? With a translation!
Here is what Mary Berry's recipe looks like copied and pasted directly from the official Great British Bake Off recipe section.
For the sponge
4 large eggs
225g caster sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
225g self-raising flour
1 level tsp baking powder
225g unsalted butter, softened, plus extra for greasing
For the jam
200g raspberries
250g jam sugar
For the buttercream
100g unsalted butter, softened
200g icing sugar, sifted
2 tbsp milk
1 – Preheat the oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4. Grease and line 2 x 20cm sandwich tins: use a piece of baking or silicone paper to rub a little baking spread or butter around the inside of the tins until the sides and base are lightly coated. Line the bottom of the tins with a circle of baking paper.
2 – Break the eggs into a large mixing bowl, then add the sugar, flour, baking powder and soft butter.
3 – Mix everything together until well combined. Be careful not to over-mix – as soon as everything is blended you should stop. The finished mixture should be of a soft ‘dropping’ consistency.
4 – Divide the mixture evenly between the tins. Use a spatula to remove all of the mixture from the bowl and gently smooth the surface of the cakes.
5 – Place the tins on the middle shelf of the oven and bake for 25 minutes. Don’t be tempted to open the door while they’re cooking, but after 20 minutes do look through the door to check them.
6 – While the cakes are cooking, make the jam. Place the raspberries in a small deep-sided saucepan and crush them with a masher. Add the sugar and bring to the boil over a low heat until the sugar has melted. Increase the heat and boil for 4 minutes. Remove from the heat and carefully pour into a shallow container. Leave to cool and chill to set.
7 – The cakes are done when they’re golden-brown and coming away from the edge of the tins. Press them gently to check – they should be springy to the touch. Remove them from the oven and set aside to cool in their tins for five minutes. Then run a palette or rounded butter knife around the inside edge of the tin and carefully turn the cakes out onto a cooling rack.
8 – To take your cakes out of the tins without leaving a wire rack mark on the top, put the clean tea towel over the tin, put your hand onto the tea towel and turn the tin upside-down. The cake should come out onto your hand and the tea towel – then you can turn it from your hand onto the wire rack. Set aside to cool completely.
9 – For the buttercream, beat the butter in a large bowl until soft. Add half of the icing sugar and beat until smooth. Add the remaining icing sugar and one tablespoon of the milk and beat the mixture until creamy and smooth. Add the remaining tablespoon of milk if the buttercream is too thick. Spoon the buttercream into a piping bag fitted with a plain nozzle.
10 – To assemble, choose the sponge with the best top, then put the other cake top-down on to a serving plate. Spread with the jam then pipe the buttercream on top of the jam. Place the other sponge on top (top uppermost) and sprinkle with caster sugar to serve.
And here is my translation my fellow metric-illiterate and volumetric-insistent Americans:
For the sponge
4 large eggs
225 g/7.9 oz/1 cup caster sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
225 g/7.9 oz/1.5 cups self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
225 g/7.9 oz/1 cup unsalted butter, softened, plus extra for greasing
For the jam
200g/7oz/1.5 c raspberries
250g/8.8oz/1 cup + 2 Tablespoons jam sugar
For the buttercream
100g/3.5oz/7 Tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
200g/7oz/2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
2 Tbsp milk
1. Preheat the oven to 350F (355 is closer if you want to be extra picky). Grease and line 2 8-inch round cake pans with parchment.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine the eggs, sugar, flour, baking powder, and soft butter.
3. Mix until well combined, being careful not to over-mix.
4. Evenly divide the batter between the two pans and smooth out with a spatula.
5. Bake on the center rack for 25 minutes. Begin checking visually (without opening the oven door) at 20 minutes.
6. While the cakes bake, make the jam. Place the raspberries in a small saucepan and crush. Add the sugar and cook over a low heat until the sugar has melted. Then, increase the heat and boil for 4 minutes. Carefully pour into a shallow container and leave to cool before moving to the refrigerator to finish setting.
7. When the cakes come away from the edge of the tins and are golden brown, they are done. Check that they spring back when touched. Allow cakes to cool for five minutes before removing them from the tins.
8. Turn the cakes out onto a tea towel to allow them to cool on a wire rack without creating indentations from the rack. Allow to cool completely.
9. When the cakes are cool, make the buttercream by beating the butter in a large bowl until smooth. Add half of the powdered sugar and continue beating until smooth again. Add the remaining icing sugar and one tablespoon of milk. Beat until creamy and smooth. If the buttercream is too thick, add the remaining milk. Spoon buttercream into a piping bag with a round tip.
10. Assemble the sandwich with the less attractive sponge on the bottom, upside down to create a flat surface. Spread the jam on the sponge and pipe buttercream on top of the jam. Place the second sponge, right side up. Sprinkle with superfine sugar to serve.
Alright. So the method for this one actually looks relatively simple. Here are the hangups to work out in translation: Self-raising flour, caster sugar, and jam sugar.
We have self-rising flour in the United States, but it's not quite the same as what Mary Berry's recipe calls for. Both self-raising (UK) and self-rising (US) have baking powder in them and are lower protein, but the American version also has a bit of salt in it. This means we have two options: use self-rising flour and reduce the salt in the recipe-- except that this recipe doesn't call for any salt. The other option is to use regular, all purpose flour and add a little extra baking powder. The problem with this is that all purpose flour has a slightly higher protein content. In simple terms: AP Flour has a little more gluten, which opens the cake up to the possibility of being a little tougher if you over-mix it.
If you're trying this at home for yourself (and I hope you do!), the choice is up to you. Because I have limited pantry space, and my pantry is already crowded with five kinds of flour, three kinds of sugar four kinds of cocoa powder, and countless other tasty ingredients, I'm going to use my good old all-purpose flour and a little extra baking powder. But you do what feels right to you!
The next issue is caster sugar. This gets used a lot on Bake Off, I've noticed, but it's a little harder to find in the States. For those whose curiosity has not yet compelled them to look it up, caster sugar is very similar to regular granulated sugar, but the crystals are a little bit smaller. In the United States it's often sold as baker's sugar or superfine sugar. At grocery stores around here, when I see it, it's usually in a tall cardboard carton, similar to a milk carton. The internet also tells me that you can make your own caster sugar by running granulated sugar through the blender or food processor. I've been doing most of my grocery shopping at Aldi, and I haven't seen any superfine sugar (except for my husband, hey-oh!), so I'm going to try and make my own.
Before I get started trying this recipe for myself (and for your amusement), I have a confession: I have made this cake before. Sort of. I freestyled a combination of this recipe and the one on the King Arthur Flour website. It turned out... okay. Hopefully this one turns out better. Additionally, I'm not going to limit myself with the time constraint issued to the GBBO bakers, but I will start a timer and let you know how the time I take stacks up in comparison.
I have another confession: I've been working on this blog post for about two weeks before posting. Writing, converting, and mentally preparing. So you would think that this would go perfectly and according to plan, right? Hahaha, we were both wrong! After setting my oven to preheat, I started digging through my cake pans and found that I only have ONE 8 inch cake pan. I have FOUR 9 inch pans, but that's not what I needed. I chuckled to myself and thought, "It's alright, I'll just cook it in two batches, which will take a little extra time. Not a big deal!" and pulled out my parchment paper which had enough left on the roll for about 1 and 3/4 pans. So. Close.
But I cracked onward! I decided that, because I had to take a few creative liberties with the flour (using all purpose and extra baking powder) I would respectfully forego Mary Berry's beloved all-in-one method. I didn't want to risk activating the extra gluten in the flour and figured the creaming method would allow me to better mix the other ingredients before mixing in the flour. So I weighed out my butter and started mixing it. 225 grams of butter is almost EXACTLY 2 sticks of butter. I removed about a half a teaspoon from the second stick to get it to weigh correctly, but I honestly doubt whether that tiny bit would make a difference. When you make this yourself, I think it's safe to say you can just use two whole sticks.
Once both cakes were out cool and the jam was nearly cool, I started the butter cream, which came together exactly as one would expect, with powdered sugar, butter, and a little bit of milk. And then it was time to assemble the Victoria Sandwich.
Per Mary's instructions, I chose the uglier sponge for the base. This happened to be my second sponge, which was slightly taller (because I'm a poor estimator) and missing a small piece from the edge where it stuck (because I was short on parchment paper, because I'm a poor estimator). I set it on the cake plate upside down and covered it with jam. The recipe did yield a bit more jam than was necessary and I think if you used all the jam it would spill over the sides and make a mess. I put on a bit more than my intuition told me to do (because I love jam), but I still had about a quarter of it leftover to have on toast in the morning. Next I piped on the buttercream, which confirmed my suspicions that I had maybe used too much jam, because the dollops of buttercream sank into the jam a little. I was easily able to use all of the buttercream, and then the pretty (albeit slightly smaller) sponge nestled nicely on top. I took a deep breath and stopped my timer: 2 hours 1 minute and 6 seconds.
And now to switch roles and be the judge of my own bake:
I think it looks alright. It's not the prettiest thing I've ever baked, and certainly not as pretty as most of what you see on GBBO, but it's not too shabby! I might be a little hard on myself when it comes to the cake's appearance because while taking pictures, I found an angle where the buttercream and jam looked like a big goofy Cheshire cat smile, and once you see it, it's very hard to unsee. So aside from the little broken piece and the manic grin, I think it looks alright.
This cake was pretty easy to make, and while it took me two whole hours to make from start to finish, if you bake both sponges at the same time, the hour and a half time limit given to the bakers in the final of UK Series 7/US Season 4, is a little tight but certainly doable. And best of all, it's a real treat to eat!
And keep an eye out (or better yet, subscribe!) for my next post when I try to replicate Paul Hollywood's baguettes! If it works, it'll be delicious, and if it doesn't work, we can use them to hold pretend sword fights!
Mary Berry's Victoria Sandwich in Translation
For the sponge
Mary Berry's Victoria Sandwich in Translation
4 large eggs
225 g/7.9 oz/1 cup caster sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
225 g/7.9 oz/1.5 cups self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
225 g/7.9 oz/1 cup unsalted butter, softened, plus extra for greasing
For the jam
200g/7oz/1.5 c raspberries
250g/8.8oz/1 cup + 2 Tablespoons jam sugar
For the buttercream
100g/3.5oz/7 Tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
200g/7oz/2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
2 Tbsp milk
1. Preheat the oven to 350F (355 is closer if you want to be extra picky). Grease and line 2 8-inch round cake pans with parchment.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine the eggs, sugar, flour, baking powder, and soft butter.
3. Mix until well combined, being careful not to over-mix.
4. Evenly divide the batter between the two pans and smooth out with a spatula.
5. Bake on the center rack for 25 minutes. Begin checking visually (without opening the oven door) at 20 minutes.
6. While the cakes bake, make the jam. Place the raspberries in a small saucepan and crush. Add the sugar and cook over a low heat until the sugar has melted. Then, increase the heat and boil for 4 minutes. Carefully pour into a shallow container and leave to cool before moving to the refrigerator to finish setting.
7. When the cakes come away from the edge of the tins and are golden brown, they are done. Check that they spring back when touched. Allow cakes to cool for five minutes before removing them from the tins.
8. Turn the cakes out onto a tea towel to allow them to cool on a wire rack without creating indentations from the rack. Allow to cool completely.
9. When the cakes are cool, make the buttercream by beating the butter in a large bowl until smooth. Add half of the powdered sugar and continue beating until smooth again. Add the remaining icing sugar and one tablespoon of milk. Beat until creamy and smooth. If the buttercream is too thick, add the remaining milk. Spoon buttercream into a piping bag with a round tip.
10. Assemble the sandwich with the less attractive sponge on the bottom, upside down to create a flat surface. Spread the jam on the sponge and pipe buttercream on top of the jam. Place the second sponge, right side up. Sprinkle with superfine sugar to serve.
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