A delicious vanilla sponge cake (AKA Victoria sponge!) that's sandwiched together with a very simple but very delicious 2-ingredient lemon mascarpone cream. It couldn't be easier to make. Mix the ingredients up in a food processor, then bake and sandwich together with a 2-ingredient mascarpone lemon cream. Perfect for Easter, Mother's day, baby showers, a grown-up birthday cake or any other event!
Preheat oven to 355F/180C. Line (with baking paper) and butter two 7” sandwich cake pans.
Process the soft butter and sugar together in the food processor for a few seconds. Alternatively, mix with a hand-held whisk. Then add the vanilla, eggs, flour and baking powder and mix until just combined and smooth. Be careful not to over-mix.
Whisk in the milk gradually until the mixture is a soft dropping consistency. You may not need to use it all.
Pour the batter equally into the pans and bake for about 25 mins, until a metal skewer or knife comes out clean.
Cool the cakes for 10 minutes in the pans, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.
Meanwhile, make the lemon mascarpone cream. Simply whisk 4 tablespoons of the lemon curd into the mascarpone cheese, then spread thickly over one of the cakes. Dollop the rest of the lemon curd (you don't have to use it all) over the top of the filling, then sandwich the cakes together.
Just before serving, dust with icing/confectioner's sugar.
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Notes
Only slightly adapted from Nigella Lawson's recipe for Victoria Sponge in her book How to Eat. Lemon mascarpone cream also adapted from an idea from Nigella.Lemon curd: Feel free to taste the mascarpone cream and add more lemon curd if you like!Using US or Australian/UK cups?: The cup measurements stated in this recipe are US sized cups. If you're using an Australian/UK cup (which is slightly larger), use 1.5 cups of flour only. Also use only 3/4 cup of sugar (around 200 grams). How to mix the batter: If you don't have a food processor, no problem! Just cream the butter with the sugar with a stand mixer or hand held mixer, then slowly add the other ingredients.I've made this cake several times both in the food processor and with a stand mixer. The food processor method is faster (BUT this is debatable, depending on how easy your food processor is to clean!).A couple of times though I over mixed the batter in the processor, which led to a slightly heavier cake. Just make sure you use soft butter so that everything combines easily and quickly in the processor.Above all only process until everything is nicely combined and smooth. Please let me know which method you followed and how your cake turned out!Storing and freezing the cake: This cake is best eaten on the day it's made because the mascarpone cream needs to be refrigerated if there are any leftovers. You can store it (well covered) in the fridge, but let it come back to room temperature before serving. Essentially though it will last for a day or two in the fridge. If you'd like to freeze the cake (or pieces of it) either with the cream in the middle or not, just wrap well and freeze for up to 3 months. Blueberry and passionfruit version: If you like you can make a delicious blueberry and passion fruit version of this cake.Simply add approximately 100 grams / 3.5 ounces blueberries to the batter before baking. Sandwich with whipped cream, then make a passion fruit icing for the top. Scrape out the contents of 2 passion fruit and sieve to get the juice (if you put the flesh, seeds and juice in a blender first and give it a quick whizz before sieving then you release more juice). Mix with 100 grams / 3.5 ounces icing sugar, then drizzle or spread the thick icing over the top of the cake.