I have imposed a  baking ban for May at work because so many of us have birthday’s this month. When it is someone’s birthday, like in a lot of workplaces, they bring in some goodies. Due to this I said that I wouldn’t bring anything in because we would have so much food already so we didn’t need anything extra.

When I decided this, I didn’t realise how much I would miss baking every weekend. I now come up with any excuse to bake for my family. This weekend, Rien’s Nan and brother are coming for the day so I instantly started thinking of recipes. I finally decided on a variation of a Victoria sponge by Anna Olsen (I love watching her baking shows) which uses fresh cream and strawberries. I liked this recipe because it swaps the usual buttercream for fresh cream and I’m not a big fan of buttercream.

They were due to arrive on Saturday morning so I thought I would get a step ahead and make the cake on Friday night. As I was following the recipe I was thinking it seemed a little odd. When I tried to take the cake out of the tins I realised something had gone very wrong. It was very thin and a dense, rubbery texture so it went straight in the bin. I have no idea what went wrong because I thought I had followed the recipe exactly but obviously not! I had to have my first disaster at some point!

I decided to admit defeat and try again in the morning but with a different recipe. For the second attempt I used a classic Victoria sandwich recipe (http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1997/classic-victoria-sandwich). This turned out far better! I merged the two recipes by using the filling from Anna Olsen’s recipe to go with the classic Victoria sandwich. This combination was definitely a success with Rien’s Nan who said it was out of this world. She was a very happy lady!

 I apologise for the mix of cups and metric measurements!

 For the cake:
200g caster sugar
200g butter
4 eggs
200g self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp milk

1. Heat the oven to 190ºC and line two 20cm sandwich tins
2. Beat all of the ingredients together until you have a smooth batter
3. Divide the batter equally between the two tins and bake in the oven for 20 minutes
4. When cooked, leave to cool completely on a wire rack

For the filling:
1 1/2 cups whipping cream
125g full fat cream cheese
1/3 cup caster sugar
1/2 tsp lemon zest
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla extract
5 cups (approx) strawberries, hulled and sliced
1/3 cup strawberry jam

5. Whip the cream until it holds soft peaks 
6. In a separate bowl beat the cream cheese to soften. Add the sugar, lemon juice and vanilla extract and beat again

7. Fold the whipped cream into the cream cheese mix, half at a time. Chill until needed
8. Coat the strawberries in the strawberry jam
9. Put one of the cakes upside down on your serving plate. Spread half of the cream across the cake and then top with half of the strawberries. Put the other cake on top and top with more cream leaving a border around the edge. Pile the rest of the strawberries on top

The cake was lovely and fluffy and the cream filling was a little bit more special than just whipped cream. Make sure you keep the cake in the fridge.