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Vanilla Sponge Cake

Makes two 20cm cakes

Preheat the oven to 160 C (fan) /180C or Gas Mark 4 25 minutes

Grease and line two 20cm cake tins

Make it sure that all the ingredients are at room temperature for a better result.

What you need

225g unsalted butter

210g white flour

25g cornflour

1 tsp baking powder

1tsp bicarbonate of soda

pinch of salt

4 large eggs

15g vanilla sugar ( or 1tsp vanilla extract)

3 tbsp semi-skimmed milk

Method

1. Cream the butter and sugar first with a large fork , then with an electrical hand mixer until pale and fluffy for 3-5 minutes.

2. Add the eggs to the creamed sugar-butter mixture one at a time and mix for a few minutes each time.

3. Combine your dry ingredients and sift the flour (You can use self- raising flour if you wish- then just add only 1tsp baking powder and skip bicarbonate of soda and pinch of salt), cornflour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and pinch of salt.

4. Mix the milk and vanilla sugar.

5. Add one third of the flour to the egg mixture and beat, add a bit of milk and repeat. Beat after each addition, but do not overbeat.

6. Divide the mixture evenly between the prepared tins, bake 25 minutes until raised and golden brown.

7. Cool 10 minutes in the tins.

8. Turn out on a rack, peel off the greaseproof paper.

Once cool, sandwich the cakes with anything you like: jam, buttercream icing, chocolate icing, whipped double cream or fresh fruit. Similarly use your imagination to decorate the top of the cake. Simplest way is raspberry jam in the middle, icing sugar on top or alternatively clotted cream in the middle with melted dark chocolate on top with hundreds and thousands to be sprinkled by the little hands of the excited elfs.