Esp as the first sponge cakes didn't contain any fat or raising agent. Instead using wisked egg whites to produce the open light texture. A fatless sponge is a surprisingly hard recipe to perfect.
Growing up I used marg in cakes as I didn't know any better. These days it's butter only.
I know some of you don't like Victoria sandwich as cake. So a little bit of why I ask.
At my work if you leave your laptop unlocked you'll come back to find someone has emailed the whole company announcing that you'll bring cake to the office for everyone. I got one of the Dutch guys with this. Upon discovering it he came over and asked me "what is cake?"
As Aunty Helen will attest, in .NL you may get apple pie, or the vile heresy that is carrot cake, but beyond that cake as a dish is pretty rare. There's a dish that is kinda like a vanilla sponge cake baked in a loaf form factor that is served at funerals, which is what most Dutch people know of as cake.
Last year as I was hitting a round multiple of ten orbits of the sun, I took in a home baked coffee and walnut cake, and a home cooked chocolate cake. I set them down on the table in the middle of the office, and exclaimed to the guy who had asked a year prior "this, is cake."
Well I'm coming up on another solar orbit. And again intend to take two cakes to work. But I thought I'd mix it up. Now my usual preference in cake goes coffee & walnut, chocolate, everything else. I thought I'd mix it up a little this year. And take a coffee & walnut, and in an effort to educate my colleagues on the culinary wonders of the British isles. A Victoria sandwich.
Hence my question.
There's a reason I cycle to Germany when I have a craving for cake...
J
