I had just enough time to squeeze in one more Royal Wedding treat! I decided to go with a simple Victoria Sponge but styled into a bite size whoopie pie. These are really quick and easy to bring to your local street party! I still haven't decided how to spend my day off from work. Any suggestions?


Victoria Sponge is the most classic British cake, after a fruit cake. It's two vanilla cakes with whipped cream and raspberry jam sandwiched in the middle. It's not overly sweet but a good contrast to the sweet Bubbly Peach Cupcakes I made earlier.


I used cookie cutters to make stencils out of the aluminium foil for the icing sugar dusted on top. A little glitter mixed in there would look nice too. You could also make a reverse template to what I've done.


I used Hannah Miles book Whoopie Pies: Fun Recipes for Filled Cookie Cakes, which is absolutely adorable (I bought my sister the book and in the US it is in cup measurements not grams)! I thought about dying the cake red and blue but figured that wouldn't be sophisticated enough for such an occasion.

Victoria Sandwich Whoopie Pie
adapted from Hannah Miles 'Whoopie Pies' (makes 12)

Ingredients
Cake
125g unsalted butter, at room temperature
220g caster/superfine sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
320g self rising flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
250ml buttermilk
100ml hot water (not boiling)

Filling
300ml whipping cream
raspberry jam
icing sugar, for dusting

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F/180 C. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or grease a whoopie pie tin. Sift together the flour, salt and baking powder together in a medium bowl and set aside.


2. In a large bowl cream together the sugar and butter with an electric mixer on medium speed, until light and fluffy about 3 minutes.


3. Add the egg and vanilla and beat until combined. Whisk in the buttermilk, alternating with the flour mixture. Whisk until Incorporated. Stir in the hot water.


4. Scoop one spoonful of batter into the tin or onto the tray. Alternatively for a uniform smooth pie put the batter in a piping bag. Let stand for 10 minutes and bake for 10-12 minutes. Remove from tin after a few minutes and set aside to cool completely.


5. Make the filling by whipping the cream until stiff peaks form. Place in a piping bag and swirl onto a round.


6. Place another cake on top a dust with icing sugar.


7. Enjoy!

I chose a Strawberry & Pistachio cake pop. At £2.25 I think it's the most expensive cake pop I've ever had! It's pretty darn cute though. The little hearts are drawn on, not sprinkles. The outside coating is white chocolate. I was also excited to see such an exciting flavor combination.


I was trying to take a picture of it and it wasn't staying on the stick very well because it's actually two cake halves made from a mold. The cake was pistachio and the center was filled with strawberry frosting! The cake was good and moist but didn't have much flavor. I couldn't taste any pistachio at all. The center was light and had a lovely strawberry flavor.

I might be tempted to try another one since I really liked the "surprise" in the middle, but due to the filling there wasn't actually much cake on the stick.

Last time I had a Mango & Lime whoopie pie. This time they only had three kinds to chose from and only in one size.

I chose a Red Velvet whoopie pie with peanut butter filling, £2.50. I think it's a fun idea of putting a classic American filling inside a classic American cake. It also had a pink glaze on the top but same as last time the boxes they pack them in are too small and the glaze all came off on the lid.

The filling is a really perfect light peanut butter swiss meringue buttercream/marshmallow type frosting. The cake part is not very good. It's the wrong consistency and tastes as flat and dense as it looks. It has potential but as the whoopie pies haven't changed since they launched I doubt they will improve.

I think next time I'll stick with a cake pop!

P.S Thanks to the person at Google with a sweet tooth for choosing me as the Blog of Note for April 6th!

The March 2011 Daring Baker’s Challenge was hosted by Ria of Ria’s Collection and Jamie of Life’s a Feast. Ria and Jamie challenged The Daring Bakers to bake a yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake.

A few nights ago I was lucky enough to be at the book launch for Peyton & Byrne British Baking. I haven't been to a book party before so I was pretty excited! It combined a lot of awesome things: baking books, champagne and eating! No great food event is complete until I've eaten so much that I feel just a little bit sick by the time I leave.

It was in the beautiful Daunt bookstore in Marylebone. I'm so glad that I went. I usually go to baking/cake events on my own and while it's hard since I'm a little shy I do end up meeting and chatting to people that I wouldn't if I'd gone with a group of friends. I met some really great people this time. It's nice to spend time with people that aren't accountants!

I met Nick and Alexis from Food Network UK. Fascinating talking to them about what shows are popular in the UK vs the US. I went out for a drink afterward with a few other women that I met while there. They were so nice and all had such fascinating jobs.