Victoria Sponge Cake

Ok, I spent the past weekend baking - orange flavoured victoria sponge cake. Baked twice. Y loved it! So, here's how I went about it,

Ingredients:

• 1 : 1 : 1 proportion of Maida (all purpose floor, I guess) : Butter : Sugar. I used the measure of 1 cup. [Don't think it was a good idea - cos that caused more butter to be used I think. Using actual weight measures should be better]
• 2 eggs + 1 tsp vanilla essence ( I made it with 3 eggs as well - not able to grok the difference yet)
• 2/3 tsp of baking powder. 1/8 tsp of salt. Mix in maida. Sieve.
• Grated skin of fresh orange. Just a teaspoon.
• Some warm milk in a cup. Just for final mixing to get the consistency.

Basic Tips:

• Butter should be @ room temperature
• Sugar is powdered sugar. I scooped out 2 or 3 tsps of the cup - helps reduce the sweetness. (The first cake was too sweet.)
• Pre-heat the oven. @ 180 C. Have both the upper & lower coils on while preheating. It should be the symbol '==' in your preset settings.
• Keep a large mixing bowl, a spatula, a wooden spoon handy.
• Grease the cake pan with butter, dust with maida and keep aside. Idea is to pop the cake in as soon as it's mixed and ready.

Steps:

• Cream the butter in the bowl first. Use a wooden spoon. Do this till the butter is a smooth creamy fluffy paste
• Add the sugar and continue the mixing. The mix should be a smooth creamy & fluffy mixture
• Now beat eggs with the vanilla essence.
• Add 1 tsp of the beaten eggs at a time into the sugar/butter mix. The idea is to avoid curdling the sugar/butter mix. This is very important and the hardest step of cake making. Mix thoroughly till the egg is blended in completely.
• When all of the egg is mixed into the butter/sugar mix, then its time to add the floor.
• First, mix in the grated orange rind into the flour.
• Now - remove the wooden spoon from the mixing bowl. Time to use the spatula or a broad knife.
• Pour in the flour. use the spatula to gently mix in the flour in folding movements. Here the idea is to not lose the air we have built in the creamy mix. The air is what aids a well risen cake.
• Add enough milk in the end and continue gently mixing. The consistency should be such that when lifted, the batter should just fall from the spatula.
• Pour this mixture into the greased pan/bowl.
• Now reduce the setting to heat from the lower coil, the symbol "__" on the settings.
• Pop in the oven. Bake for 35 minutes. [The best way to check is - after 30 minutes, open the over and insert a thin knife or a toothpick into the cake. If it comes clean, then the cake is done.]
• The final 3 - 5 mins, change the settings to "==" to get the browning on the cake top. This should be done only if the cake hasn't browned already.