Recipe: School dinner style Tottenham Cake

I’m a big fan of the sponge cake traybake. They’re really quick and easy to make, they cut into equal size pieces, so no one squabbles about portion sizes, and they’re almost always delicious. This recipe for Tottenham Cake is as simple as it gets really, and the bright pink icing doesn’t have an artificial colour anywhere near it, which is a good thing indeed.

The first Tottenham Cake was made by a local baker, Henry Chalkley who was a Quaker. His affordable and easy to make treat quickly became popular. The colourful pink icing was originally made using mulberries which grew in the grounds of the Quaker Meeting House in Tottenham. Mulberries are a little hard to come by these days, so the pink colour is often achieved using fresh raspberries, or food colouring.

When Tottenham Hotspur Football Club won the FA Cup in 1901, the cake was given free to local children in celebration of this historic win. Tottenham Cake is still popular today and is available in local bakeries in London, and also London branches of Greggs bakers. If you’re not local to London, I can assure you that the recipe is ridiculously easy, and it’ll save you making a trip to the big smoke for a slice of cake!

Tottenham Cake was featured on The Great British Bake Off on 17 September 2013. You can watch the video here.

This Tottenham Cake is a cousin to the school dinner classic – the sprinkle cake. Lovely light sponge, topped with a sweet simple icing that’s always going to be a winner for children and adults alike. It’s definitely going to make it onto my regular baking round, and this is the recipe that’s finally made me order a proper traybake tin, rather than my usual small roasting tin. My future is full of traybakes, and I’m not sad about that!

Recipe: School dinner style Tottenham Cake

This recipe makes 15 (ish) squares of cake. You can add a bit of lemon zest if you like, as the icing is flavoured with raspberries, the hint of lemon works really well with it.

School dinner style Tottenham Cake

Ingredients:
200 g caster sugar
200 g softened butter or margarine (I use Stork)
4 eggs, beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
1.5 tbsp milk
200 g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
Zest of 1 lemon, finely grated (optional)

For the icing
200g icing sugar, sifted
100g fresh raspberries
Desiccated coconut (optional)

Recipe: School dinner style Tottenham Cake

How to make your cake:

Heat your fan oven to 180c. Line a 20 x 30cm cake tin with baking paper. I use a medium sized roasting tin. In a large bowl, beat your butter and sugar together until fluffy (I used a hand mixer). Add the eggs, milk and vanilla and combine, then add the flour and baking powder and mix together until you have a smooth batter. If you’re adding lemon, stir that though now.

Pour your cake batter into your prepared tin. Bake in your pre-heated oven for around 40-45 mins until golden and cooked. Leave to cool on a cooling rack.

While your cake is cooling, sift your icing sugar into a bowl to remove the lumps. Lumpy icing isn’t the best, so it’s worth taking a minute to do this. Pop your fresh raspberries in a microwavable dish and cook for around 90 seconds, or until they’ve collapsed and are soft and pulpy. Push the raspberries through a sieve, so you’re removing the raspberry seeds. Pour the juice into your icing sugar and mix well.

Once all the icing sugar is incorporated, pour over the top of your cake. Spread the icing evenly, be aware that it will spread a little of its own accord. Once the top of the cake is covered in the icing, sprinkle over the desiccated coconut until you’re happy with how it looks. If you’re not a fan of coconut, you could use sprinkles, or just leave it as it is. Let the icing set for an hour or two and once the icing is firm to the touch, you can cut it into squares and share it with friends.

If you enjoyed this recipe, you might also like to try a cornflake pie, chocolate cake with chocolate custard or peppermint crunch slices.

Tottenham Cake

Recipe: School dinner style sprinkle sponge cake

Growing up in the 1980’s it’s fair to say that my recollections of school dinners are less than rose-tinted. There was the odd thing I liked, but most of it was probably nutritious but not very memorable. What I do remember though, were the puddings. From cornflake pie, chocolate cake with chocolate custard and peppermint crunch slices, every day was a puddingy treat. One of my favourites then, and indeed now is school dinner style sprinkle sponge cake.

As far as really easy recipes go, this has has got to be up there. It’s a simple vanilla sponge cake topped with easy icing and then sprinkled generously with hundreds and thousands. I make this pretty regularly at home. It’s a very quick bake; easy to throw together, minimal mess, it travels very well for picnics and bake sales, and it’s always popular with my tribe!

School dinner style sprinkle sponge cake

This recipe makes 12-16 squares, depending on how generous you are with your cake cutting.

School dinner style sprinkle sponge cake

Ingredients:
200 g caster sugar
200 g softened butter or margarine (I use Stork)
4 eggs, beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
1.5 tbsp milk
200 g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder

200g icing sugar, sifted
Tepid tap water, approx 2 tablespoons, see how it goes
Sprinkles, millions of them!

School dinner style sprinkle sponge cake

How to make your school dinner style sprinkle sponge cake:

Pour your cake batter into your prepared tin. Bake in your pre-heated oven for around 40-45 mins until golden and cooked. Leave to cool on a cooling rack.

While your cake is cooling, sift your icing sugar into a bowl to remove the lumps. Lumpy icing isn’t the best, so it’s worth taking a minute to do this. Once it’s sifted, drop some of the tepid tap water into the icing, do this a teaspoon at a time and do not make it too runny. Ideally you want a fairly stiff icing and this should use a little less than 2 tablespoons of water. Mix well until all the icing sugar in incorporated and then pour over the top of your cake. Spread the icing evenly, be aware that it will spread a little of its own accord.

Once the top of the cake is covered in the icing, sprinkle over your hundreds and thousands until you’re happy with how it looks. Use fancy sprinkles or standard sprinkles, whatever you like. Leave the icing to set for an hour or two and once the icing is firm to the touch, you can cut it into squares and share it with friends.

School dinner style sprinkle sponge cake

This really is the easiest cake to make. It’s a real crowd pleaser and it’s definitely not just for children. This vanilla sponge is delicious, but if you wanted to ring the changes, you could add a bit of lemon zest to the cake batter and make the icing with lemon juice instead of water. That really would be a lemony teatime treat!

School dinner style sprinkle sponge cake

Party Recipe: Jam and Cream Sponge Cake

This week sees the 75th anniversary of VE Day and many people across the UK and beyond will be marking the date. We will be taking part in a community zoom celebration, so I’ve been busy baking a lovely Jam and Cream Sponge Cake to have with a nice pot of tea.

I baked this deliciously light sponge cake filled with lovely purple (the royal colour) mulled wine jam. I’d like to think the Queen would approve of my simple but very yummy jam and cream sponge cake.

Patriotic Jam and Cream Sponge Cake

To find out how to make my Jam and Cream Sponge Cake, read my recipe below…

Patriotic Jam and Cream Sponge Cake

Serves 16
A classic Victoria Sponge layered with Mulled Wine Jam and Chantilly Cream.

Ingredients
300g caster sugar
300g softened butter
6 eggs, beaten
2 tsp vanilla extract
3 tbsp milk
300g self-raising flour
1.5 tsp baking powder

For the filling
1/2 Jar Mackays Christmas Preserve (mulled wine jam)
200ml double cream
1 level tablespoon of icing sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Instructions
Heat your fan oven to 190c. Butter three 20cm sandwich tins. In a large bowl, beat your butter and sugar together until fluffy (I used a hand mixer). Add the eggs, milk and vanilla and combine, then add the flour and baking powder and mix together until you have a smooth batter.

Divide the mixture equally between the three tins, you can weigh them to make sure they’re fairly equal if you’d like. Bake in your pre-heated oven for around 20 mins until golden and they’re cooked through. Remove from the tins and leave to cool on a cooling rack.

To make the Chantilly cream, beat the cream, sugar and vanilla until smooth and creamy. I used my hand mixer for this and it took just a few minutes.

To assemble the cake, choose the most attractive of the three sponge cakes and save that one to go on the top. You may need to cut the top of some of your layers to make them flatter so they sit more comfortably on each other. Put the bottom layer on your serving plate or cake board. Put a teaspoon of jam on the plate and put your bottom layer on that. It will help it stick to the board. Cover that first layer with your jam and put the second layer on top. Gently press the layers together. Top your second layer with the cream and put your top layer on top, sprinkle with icing sugar or decorate as you wish.

Notes

The cream is fresh so the cake will need to be eaten fairly quickly or refrigerated. If you want to keep it for a few days it might be best to not have the cream in between layers, maybe kept in the fridge to indulgently dollop on the side.

My Patriotic Jam and Cream Sponge Cake would make the prefect addition to a celebratory street party or a refined afternoon tea round at Buckingham Palace. It’s so quick and easy to make, it’ll leave you plenty of time to make a few plates of cucumber sandwiches and mix up a jug or two of Pimms for the party!

Patriotic Jam and Cream Sponge Cake

What’s your favourite celebratory bake?

Patriotic Jam and Cream Sponge Cake

I have to say, this sponge recipe is absolutely magic, I use it as the base for all my sponge cake bakes now; from butterfly cakes, cupcakes, sponge puddings and good old Victoria sponges, it’s light every single time. I can’t fault it.

Jam and Cream Sponge Cake

Recipe: My Prize Winning Victoria Sponge Cake

Summer is the season of horticultural and agricultural shows. Up and down the country, towns, villages and counties have fairs, fates and big shows and often there’s a competition where crafters, growers and bakers enter their produce to be judged against the best.

We were on holiday in the North Devon village of Welcombe during the preparations for their 60th Welcombe Horticultural Show. We have friends and family in the village, and they suggested I enter some of my baking. So that’s what I did. I entered two classes in the cookery section – Victoria Sponge and Homemade biscuits.

A Victoria Sponge should be a fairly straight forward thing to bake. It’s considered my many to be entry-level baking; but with a Victoria Sponge there is nowhere to hide. It’s so simple but quite easy to get a little bit wrong. Before I became more interested in baking I used to make very mediocre Victoria Sponge cakes, but in recent years I’ve perfected my recipe and technique and now my Victoria Sponge is as good as any.

Recipe: My Prize Winning Victoria Sponge

We were staying in a converted barn which had a very well equipped kitchen, so I only needed to buy some new cake tins and some weighing scales, plus the ingredients I needed. I made everything the night before the competition and made sure I read the WI rules for the perfect Victoria Sponge which you can find below.

Guidelines for making the Victoria Sponge sandwich for competition are set out in the NFWI Education Committee’s handbook On with the Show:

May be baked in one or two tins
No cooling rack marks on top or bottom surface
Traditional filling of raspberry jam, sufficient and evenly spread
Light sprinkling of caster sugar on top
Pale golden colour, evenly baked
Texture fine, even
Flavour delicate, characteristic, with no strong favour predominating

I followed these instructions almost to the letter, almost because I used icing sugar rather than caster sugar sprinkled over the top. I’ll know better next time.

I had a bit of a disaster with my lemon shortbread biscuits, the mix wouldn’t firm up enough for me to roll out, so I baked it in a traditional round and sliced it into six wedges. I knew that presentation would mark me down, and I was right; but the judges did comment on the lovely flavour and texture. So I just need to figure out what went wrong for next time.

We dropped my entries off on the morning of the show and then had a nervous wait while the judges deliberated. I was delighted when the show opened that afternoon to find that my lemon shortbread had won 3rd prize in its class and my Victoria Sponge was joint 1st.

Recipe: My Prize Winning Victoria Sponge

I genuinely did not think my baking stood a chance against the talented local bakers. The competition was very stiff and I was so pleased with myself for doing so well.

The recipe I used for my Victoria Sponge was based on my fail-safe sponge cake recipe which has done me proud over the years. It never fails, never.

Prize Winning Victoria Sponge cake Recipe

Ingredients:
200 g caster sugar
200 g softened butter or margarine (I use Stork)
4 eggs, beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
1.5 tbsp milk
200 g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder

To finish
1/3 of a jar of good quality raspberry jam
Caster sugar for dusting

Method:
Heat your fan oven to 190c. Grease two 20cm sandwich tins, I also lined the bottom of each tin with a circle of baking parchment. In a large bowl, beat your butter and sugar together until fluffy (I used a hand mixer). Add the eggs, milk and vanilla and combine, then add the flour and baking powder and mix together until you have a smooth batter.

Divide the mixture equally between the two tins. You can weigh them to make sure they’re fairly equal if you’d like. Bake in your pre-heated oven for around 20 mins until golden and they’re cooked. Remove from the tins and leave to cool on a cooling rack.

If you’re baking to WI standard and want to avoid making cooling rack marks, then turn your cakes out onto a cooling rack; but make sure there is a piece of baking parchment between the cake and the rack.

Leave your cakes to cool, preferably overnight before thickly spreading good quality raspberry jam between them and sandwiching them together. Dust with a little caster sugar and serve.

It’s really important to make sure your cakes are cool before you put your jam layer in. I thought mine were cool enough, but they weren’t and my jam seeped into the layers and I got marked down for that.

My Victoria Sponge was victorious! I’m planning to go back again next year and defend my title, enter a few more things into the show and do better with my lemon shortbread.

If you live somewhere where there is a village show, or some kind of Bake Off competition, please do consider entering. It’s really great fun. I entered thinking I didn’t have much hope of even placing, let alone winning anything. I was delighted to have done so well. Good luck, and happy baking!

Recipe: My Prize Winning Victoria Sponge Cake

Baking the blues away – keeping occupied

I’m trying to ease myself back gently into the world of blogging. My dad died less than a fortnight ago and I’m still trying to settle the thoughts in my head. I know I’ll not be back doing what I was doing for a while yet and I am determined to be kind to myself.

My blog posts will be sporadic for the next few weeks or months. Who knows. It was his funeral on Thursday and I’d planned to spend yesterday baking for an afternoon tea party this weekend. I like baking, occasionally I really nail it and pull something extraordinary out of the oven, sometimes I bake something which goes straight in the bin, and oftentimes I make very average cakes which people appreciate but I see fault in every slice.

Yesterday was about fulfilling my promise to bake for the party, but also to spend the day focused on a creative task and a way of keeping occupied. To properly occupy my mind and my hands for long enough to make the world feel ordinary for a while. I had to resist the temptation to box up a batch of cakes for my dad, but a day baking is a day well spent.

Keeping occupied

I baked a coffee and walnut cake, cute coffee cupcakes, a Victoria Sponge, blueberry buttermilk scones and a sticky marmalade tea loaf. I spent the whole day on my feet baking and clearing up after myself. I don’t know if it’s done me any good, but it’s kept me occupied and there’s enough cake for 30 people at the party.

I wasn’t especially impressed with my Victoria Sponge which I think suffered because I rushed it and I forgot about it while I was chatting to the window cleaner. I’m pleased with my little coffee cupcakes and the coffee and walnut cake. I know the scones will come alive with a dollop of jam and clotted cream too.

I’ve always enjoyed baking and I think it’ll be a good therapy and distraction for me over the next few weeks. Anyone got any decent recipes for me to try?