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Cream for Victoria Sponge


CeeJay
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I have at last plucked up courage to make a Victoria Sponge.

Bought the jam for the filling and all the other necessary bits but couldn't find thick cream anywhere.

Suddenly remembered late wife mentioned the same some time ago but used something else, I know not what.

Any suggestions please?
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Weegie wrote the following post at 21 Nov 2020 18:44:

You can use crème entière (Elle & Vire Normandie) and add a sachet of Crème Fixe, which thickens it.

An alternative is Elle & Vire Crème à Fouetter et Mascarpone.

I can endorse both/either of these methods as I have tried them both with success.

Apparently, according to the tv adverts Elle et Vire has a new thick cream for sale .. but I can't remember the name, sorry?

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Théière wrote the following post at 21 Nov 2020 20:59:

Looks pretty nasty stuff creme fixe, packed with sugar and carrageenans which can cause inflammation, gastrointestinal ulcerations, and that it damages your digestive system.

Maybe xanthum gum would work?

Don't know about your option .. but I will add that the amount of crème fixe that is added/used is tiny .. so I'm convinced that it would not be enough to provoke the disastrous problems you mention.

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I don't use cream at all for a Victoria sponge.  Just a good thick layer of jam (preferably homemade) is fine by me.  If you do use cream, you'd have to eat up the whole cake the same day?  Bear in mind that, at the moment, you can't invite anybody to help you out?

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[quote user="mint"]I don't use cream at all for a Victoria sponge.  Just a good thick layer of jam (preferably homemade) is fine by me.  If you do use cream, you'd have to eat up the whole cake the same day?  [/quote]
Agree - for the reason you state. Of course, that doesn't mean it has to be a cream-free zone. A good dollop of crème crue nestling alongside the slice works for me. [:D]

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Apparently the queen has a victoria sponge at her tea table everyday.  And it could be the Queen Victoria also had it and thus the name.  But my knowledge of the British monarchy cannot be relied on. 

As ausadrets has mentioned, use Delia Smith's recipe.  Or try Mary Berry's.  Here you are, Lori:

[url]https://thegreatbritishbakeoff.co.uk/recipes/all/mary-berry-victoria-sponge/[/url]

If you don't want such a large cake, you can use 6 oz each of butter, sugar and flour and 3 eggs but use a smaller tin, 18 cm.

Or the same proportions for an even smaller cake, 4 oz of the first 3 ingredients and 2 eggs.  For this one, I would use 6 inch tins.

PS sorry to be using different units of measure.  Just that I have been making this cake before metriculation and that was how I used to do it!

As an American, you might prefer to measure in cupfuls but use the same proportions of ingredients to eggs and adjust size of tins[:)]

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Loiseau wrote the following post at 25 Nov 2020 2:27:

It's what's known as a "quatre quarts" in French, Lori.

Equal weights of four things: eggs, self-raising flour, butter and sugar.

Except it always has some sort of filling in the middle ?

I was taught to weigh the eggs .. then whatever their weight the same quantity of flour, fat and sugar.
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I see, thank you all for the explanations.  Similar to what we Americans refer to as a 'yellow cake.'   Though we don't necessarily use equal weights.

Thanks for the recipe links too.  Sounds very simple.  I use the buttercream frosting often as it is quite popular in the U.S.  Love it on a carrot cake.  Cream sounds good too, but then I gather it would need refrigeration and my current frigo is too small for a normal sized cake.

Never heard of a sandwich tin (from the recipe).

I like the fact that you can adjust the size of cake you want to make.

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Loiseau and Sue, I was taught that the proportions were 4, 4, 4 and 2(eggs) or 6,6,6 and 3 or 8,8 and so on.

I have seen some dinky little sandwich tins holding 2,2,2 and 1.  If I knew I could stop at just the one bite of cake, I'd get some of these.  They look really cute!  Saw them on Lakeland.

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You're absolutely right about the filling, Sue! I had forgotten that the French don't do that.

Mint, you are right too. I remember having to weigh it all out on some enormous household scales when i was a child.

The egg weighed about 2oz, so 1 egg plus 2oz of each other ingredient. That's the same proportion as you are quoting, n'est-ce pas?

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It is more like a génoise as regards the form ..

Edit : Quatre-quarts is slightly more dense than a Victoria sponge .. but it depends on the quality of the Quatre-quarts.

Edit 2 : You're right mint .. the pic was visible when I posted it but smthg odd seems to have happened to it since .. tant pis.
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  • 2 weeks later...
I tried all sorts of mixes for the cream for my cakes and I only found that elle et vire creme with some icing sugar in it and a bit of creme fixe worked the best.

It thickens as it should to fill a cake. I make most things myself and frankly am not interested in creme fixe being 'bad' for the bit I use, I'll risk it.[Www]

And yet, all this talk of fresh cream  and I would never put such cream in a victoria sponge. I always put some jam in it and some butter icing and then a sprinkle of icing on the top.

Personally I never find that the richer cake mix your get with a victoria sponge marries up with proper cream.

Now it would marry up  with a genoise, which is what I would call a fatless sponge, even if it has a little melted butter in it. A lighter cake and marvellous with cream in it.

When I make a victoria sponge, I swop around a bit, sometimes I weigh the eggs ( in their shells)  and use that weight as a base. Other times, I use the 222,444 etc, but only when I use margarine, or whatever you call it these days.

With butter and I always add an extra two ounces of SR Flour, I find that if I don't the fat in butter makes the cake crumb, well not heavy, fatty, don't know how to describe it.

All this talk of french cakes, well, there are so many cakes in France that I find horribly dry to eat. No wonder they dunk so much.

I am pleased to read that  thick cream is available, that is a very good thing.

I do have a problem with cream in England though, for all I have endless types of cream available, from single to jersey cream so thick a spoon stands up in it, I have had difficulty finding a cream that it good for my gratin dauphinois. Double cream is too fatty, single too thin and whipping, well, not quite there with that either. So french cream for a classic french dish works best........[:D]

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May I say how delighted I am to see you back, Idun... for many reasons but most importantly (and selfishly!) because several years ago I misplaced a scrap of paper on which I'd scrawled the recipe for Teamedup's mince pie pastry.

So could you spread a little cheer in this Norman(die) household and remind me of it?

Thanks in advance. [:D]

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mascapone pastry

  • 8ozs of

    SR Flour 225 grs,

  • 3 ozs of

    Butter softened 90grs

  • 4 ozs of

    Mascarpone cheese well in fact cut the cheese in the tub in half and

    use half

  • pinch of

    salt

  • Rub the

    softened butter into the flour with a pinch of salt

  • Knead in

    the mascarpone until you have a rollable pastry

  • Or if you

    make sure that the butter is very soft, bang the lot in a robot and

    let it do the mixing. Once you have got the mixture out, make it

    into a ball and leave it for ten minutes before rolling out.

  • Roll out

    to normal pastry thickness and cut into 2inch squares

  • Garnish

    them with whatever you fancy. I usually damp all the edges with milk

    before nipping all the corners up and into parcels.

  • pre heat 

    and Bake at 400°f until golden 200°c

As long as you use softened butter,

this will always work, don't put any other liquid into it, kneading

it all together with the mascapone, will make the dough.

I believe 'mint' uses this recipe all

the time for pastry. 

I say cut squares as I make parcels

with the squares of pastry, I put all sorts in them, prune compote,

sweet mincemeat, creme pat with chopped peaches, lemon curd, and so

the list goes on.

Last year though I did make traditional

mince pies with this pastry.

good luck.

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