The Victoria Sponge's True Identity [S. Worthen

Thank you for all your responses on the typical British cake to eat with tea. The answer is either a light fruit cake, a Victoria sponge, or a seed cake. It's unclear if one of these is really more typical than another, but those were the ones you collectively prefered.

What I noticed in your answers, however, is that there is no consensus on what a Victoria sponge should be ~~flavored~~ filled with.

hungry_pixel presumed Victoria sponges would taste like vanilla. On the contrary,

billyabbott prefers jam-filled ones.

sam_t commented on cream, buttercream, and raspberry jam versions.

ladymoonray didn't specify if she was thinking of a particular kind of them.

sollersuk mentioned butter icing or jam, without specifying kinds.

So - what SHOULD a Victoria sponge be layered with? And are there any limits on the appropriate kind of jam to use with them, and still call it a Victoria sponge? Any kind of jam at all? Would you be as happy with apricot jam as with marmelade as with pineapple jam? Are you allowed to have more than one ~~flavor~~ filling, i.e. a layer of buttercream AND a layer of jam? Or must a Victoria sponge have a single layer of filling?

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I don't the filling has any bearing on the naming of the cake as a Victoria sponge, but in my mind they always contain red jam of some kind. The addition of buttercream either on top of the cake or along with or instead of jam in the middle is all permissable in my book. But then again, I am quite permissive when it comes to the creation of cakey goodness.

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I agree. Icing sugar on top is also good.

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Bring on the sweet potato jam Victoria sponge cakes?

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Most English village shows or WI competitions restrict fillings to raspberry jam on its own. However, most village shows are fascistic and morally fillings should be judged on flavour and personal preference alone. The best Victoria Sponge filling I ever met was raspberry sorbet and home made vanilla ice-cream - and that was at a tennis club tea so very pukka!

In my family, the sponge was plain and the filling was raspberry jam, strawberry jam or (for special occasions) vanilla buttercream and raspberry jam, in order of frequency. I'm not sure how far the definition of a Victoria Sponge stretches, though. Flavoured sponges are definitely out (e.g. a coffee-flavoured sponge with coffee buttercream would just be 'coffee sponge cake') and I can't really imagine putting marmalade on a plain sponge (I think it would be too tart) but where the line is drawn with reference to gooseberry jam, for example, is beyond me.

Red or green goosberries?

The only gooseberry jam I've had was made by my great-aunt from her own gooseberries, and I don't know what sort she had. The jam was red-ish (and very tasty), though.

I would say that it is the sponge itself that identifies it as a Victoria sponge. My mother usually filled it with a layer of buttercream and a layer of apricot or strawberry jam.

If the sponge itself identifies the cake, does it need to have a filling to count?

It's an interesting but perhaps rather academic point. I don't think I've ever come across an unfilled one

I ask because no one else has implied the possibility of an unfilled Victoria sponge. If it's just the sponge, what makes a Victoria sponge different from any other kind of sponge cake?

Hmm, I always think of a Victoria sponge as having layers (whether this is two separately baked layers or one cake cut to create two vertical layers doesn't matter), which implies there must be something between them, if only to hold them together.

What a pointless question this was. I really wasn't asking what I meant!

There is a difference between flavouring and layering. Flavouring refers to the cake itself and should only be vanilla in a true Victoria sponge. Other flavours (chocolate, coffee etc.) would be called by that name - chocolate sponge, coffee sponge...

The layering of a Victoria sponge is traditionally jam in the middle with a dusting of icing sugar on top. Buttercream is commonly used instead of or in addition to the jam. Generally raspberry or strawberry jam are used, though I've had a delicious blackberry jam Victoria sponge. I wouldn't use apricot jam personally, marmalade would be an abomination, and pineapple jam I've never heard of.

Some people also like to ice the top of the cake. You might put more buttercream here (especially if you want it to be special, e.g. for a birthday cake) but then it stops feeling like a true Victoria sponge. More commonly you'd use a glace icing, possibly flavoured with lemon juice and sometimes coloured but often not. Glace icing is just icing (powdered) sugar mixed with water.

You're right, I was being very sloppy with flavoring vs. filling. I meant filling and will edit the post to clarify. Blackberry jam sounds like a delicious filling.

In my family a Victoria sponge is plain sponge cake with a layer of raspberry jam in the middle and a small amount of unflavoured glace icing on top.

Edited Date: 2008-03-26 01:15 pm (UTC)

Red jam and buttercream. Shouldn't matter what flavour the jam is but it must be red.

Would you be okay with a red-jam flavored ice cream filling, or would that be some other form of cake entirely?

I think that anything containing ice cream is a pudding/dessert, and therefore not a cake, but I don't know how many people would agree with me there.

I would certainly agree. You couldn't put something with ice cream into a cake tin! And I really don't think you could pick it up to eat.

On that subject, extra note for OP: in the UK cake is usually held in the fingers. Using a fork seems rather pretentious, and a cake that needs one is viewed as more a gateau (as in Black Forest Gateau) and more dessert-ish than something to eat with a cup of tea or coffee.

I vote for (red) jam, not because I know anything about Victoria sponges, but because red jams are always the right choice.

My mother's Victoria sponge had raspberry jam and buttercream filling, and a dusting of icing sugar on top. I think other jams would be permissable, such as blackcurrant, strawberry, even apricot. Marmalade would Not Do.

According to the arbiter of al-knowledge, wikipedia, Victoria sponges contain more fat than a normal sponge cake (which don't normally have butter/margarine in) and is unadorned on top, but is filled with a combination of red jam and butter cream OR lemon.

And it's all Queen Victoria's fault.

It could be any jam, though strawberry or raspberry are most usual (and pineapple jam is so rare that only big supermarkets or speciality grocers would be likely to have it), but I'd find that marmelade (which is what I prefer on toast) would have the wrong character. And yes, you could have two.

A friend made me some pineapple jam last year, and it was very good, if too sweet and sticky for putting on a sponge cake (now I come to think of it, banana bread or a ginger loaf would have been good). I don't remember seeing it in supermarkets, although I haven't been looking.

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The Victoria Sponge's True Identity

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