As I'm back home from uni for the summer and I no longer have any problematic sharing-a-tiny-kitchen-with-housemates-type problems, I've started baking again. It's been quite a while since I last wrote a post for the cake 'n' bake section of the blog, but my most recent kitchen escapades have provided me with some inspiration: in the form of the humble sandwich cake.
What I love most about this cake is that it's infinitely customisable; above, you can see that I've tried out a few different flavour combinations. Some of my favourites include coffee, chocolate, or a traditional Victoria sandwich with strawberry jam. You can mix things up further by adding an extra sponge layer, or even topping off your creation with a meringue and an icing drizzle.
Today, though, for the second time in a fortnight, I've made a lemon curd sandwich cake. For this variation, I used my standard sandwich sponge mix, which consists of 8oz butter, sugar and flour and four eggs - you can scale this up and down to your heart's content, to make bigger and smaller cakes. To this, I added the grated zest of two lemons.
If you fancy creating a chocolate version, you can substitute 2oz flour for 2oz cocoa powder, and for a coffee-infused cake, add a tablespoon of instant coffee to the mix.
Because lemon is probably my favourite cake flavour, I added an extra zestiness to one half of the cake with some citrus curd. I used this lemon and lime curd from Devon-based Hogs Bottom Garden Delights, which is absolutely delicious - highly recommended!
To counter the sharpness of the lemon and avoid a citrus overload, I spread the second half with vanilla butter cream. My fail-safe butter cream method is use twice as much icing sugar as butter; for the lemon sandwich, I used 4oz of icing sugar to 2oz butter.
Spread your chosen fillings over your two cakes - jam and butter cream work perfectly together, as does a combination of butter cream flavours, such as chocolate and vanilla. And with summer coming up and Wimbledon around the corner, you could create a luxurious sandwich of fresh strawberries and whipped cream.
All that's left to do is quickly and carefully sandwich the two halves of your sponge together. I'd recommend lifting them both off the cooling rack to do this, rather than dropping one half from a great height onto the other!
And there you have it: a complete sandwich cake. They're easy to bake and they're even easier to personalise. Once you find your favourite combination of flavours and fillings, this will definitely be your go-to sponge. And if it takes you a while to find the perfect match, I'm certain that you'll enjoy trying and tasting.
