victoria sponge & birthdays

Is it weird that I'm posing with the cake? Probably, but I don't have many other pictures of it. My blogger game was off today.

Today is my sister's 8th birthday and she asked me to make her party cake. Turns out this cake wasn't even used as the party cake because my mum bought an apple pie (???) from the shop and most of the kids ate that instead. French kids are kinda weird, and I know that's mean but sorry -- what kid likes apple pie??

I'm not upset, though (well, not that much).

Still, today was fun. Luckily the 24th fell on a weekend, so we had a party with everyone from her class on her actual birth day. When do kids stop inviting everyone? I remember having parties with the whole class when I was younger, but at one point it just stopped. Is it when you hit high school, or earlier, like in grade 6 when the girls start getting kinda mean?

By the way my sister acts, you'd think she just turned 18. She can be so... Coco sometimes. For example, at aged 4, she asked me, "Why is your face all spotty?" As the years went on, she still doesn't have much chill and now needs to be the centre of attention.

So, of course, today was bit of a drama. Everything had to be about her all day and if it wasn't, she cried. She cried 3 times just during the games! But thankfully she quickly lightened up when we suggested she start opening her presents.

Talking about games, my sister and I had a great time trying to explain the rules of 'pass the parcel' and 'musical statues' to the French kids. Between us we can definitely order a meal, but we can't really have a full conversation -- do you get what I mean? Our essential French is good, but past that we're sorta clueless. So trying to translate "only take off one layer of paper at a time" was difficult.

But overall it was a good day. It was a party, parties are always fun, right?

And my cake was a success with the family, and the one kid who ate it, she said it was "bueno" which  was kinda weird but I guess she mixed up her English and Spanish?? But either way, it is a compliment.

Victoria Sponge Recipe

Ingredients

200g (around 1 1/2 cup) self rising flour

200g (around 1 cup) caster sugar

200g (also around 1 cup) butter

4 medium eggs

1tsp vanilla extract

Method

1. Cream together sugar and butter. Once they are combined, add in the vanilla. Once that's all mixed together, add eggs one at a time and beat well after each addition so that it... mixes in and stuff.

2.  Sift in the flour. I do a bit at a time, but I suppose you could do it all at once. There's not really a difference.

3. At this point you could add stuff like nuts, chocolate chips, or something else but that isn't really Victoria sponge anymore but whatever, man, Queen Victoria is dead and I don't think she'd be annoyed anyway.

4. You can split the mixture into two round tins, or bake it all together and cut it the layers in afterwards. I chose to bake it all at the same time at 160C for 40 minutes.

5. Once the cake is done, let it completely cool and slice it in half horizontally. The easiest way to get it even is to put it on a piece of parchment paper and then you can pull the paper in a circular motion and it slides the cake around and helps with a straight(-er) cut. Does that make sense? Basically it's like a DIY cake turning table.

5. On the insides of the layers, spread on your cream frosting and strawberry jam, on opposite sides. Then put the two back together again.

6. Then you can eat. I mean you could eat before, but I would recommend eating it when it's done.