Victoria Sponge

Name: Victoria Sponge
Total time: 70 min
Yield: 8 servings
Cuisine: British
Ingredients: Butter; Quark; Caster sugar; Eggs; Plain flour; Baking powder; Raspberry jam; Single cream; Icing sugar

378 kcal a serving, against 655 for the traditional version. That is 277 kcal off, or 42%, with 8.1g of protein. Serves 8. 70 minutes (plus cooling).

What the traditional version is

The standard Victoria sponge uses equal weights of butter, caster sugar, eggs and plain flour for the sponge. The method is entirely about beating loads of air into butter and sugar. Once baked, the cooled cakes are sandwiched with a thick layer of raspberry jam and a generous helping of buttercream - more butter and sugar, just in case you were missing them.

What changed, and what each change costs

Buttercream to whipped reduced-fat cream

Buttercream is pure butter and sugar, and a huge chunk of what tips the scales. Whipped reduced-fat cream lets you keep the squish and coolness, with far less fat or sugar.

What it costs you. It's nowhere near as rich, and you lose the structure. The cake slumps fast and won't hold its shape if you look at it funny. If you wanted clean slices for fancy company, this is not the one.

Butter in the sponge to half butter, half quark

Straight butter gives a moist, melting crumb but also brings a sledgehammer of saturated fat. Swapping half for quark is the only way to keep the cake from tasting like old toast, without entirely binning the texture.

What it costs you. You lose a bit of richness and the crust comes out a little softer. It's cake, not polystyrene, but it's not the archetype either. If you eat with your ears, you might miss the proper 'spring' as you cut in.

Sugar in the sponge reduced by 15%

200g of sugar in a single cake feels like a dare. Cutting 30g out doesn't turn it into health food, but the jam's still plenty sweet, and the rest of the cake survives fine.

What it costs you. A slight drop in the caramelised edge and some purists will say it's less golden. If you want bitter cake, you're reading the wrong book.

Butter in the filling goes entirely

There's already enough butter in the sponge to make a Victorian nervous. Take it out of the filling and you can actually taste the raspberry underneath.

What it costs you. The filling wants to flee the minute you slice, so don't turn your back. The contrast between thick buttercream and jam is lost. Flavour's lighter, but so is the ability to pass this off as the original.

What goes in it

The ingredients, without the quantities. The weights are what the figures below are computed from, and they are in the book.

Butter
Quark
Caster sugar
Eggs
Plain flour
Baking powder
Raspberry jam
Single cream
Icing sugar

How it starts

Heat your oven to 170C (fan 160C).
Beat the butter and quark with the caster sugar until pale and very fluffy.
Beat in the eggs one at a time, with a spoonful of flour if the mix threatens to curdle.

The rest of the method, and every weight, is in Authentic-ish British.

The numbers

Per serving	Traditional	Lightened
Calories	655	378
Protein	6.1g	8.1g
Fat	35.6g	15.6g
Saturated fat	21.3g	8.7g
Carbohydrate	80.2g	51.9g
Protein per 100 kcal	0.9g	2.2g

Every figure is computed from the recipe's own weighed ingredient list against public food composition databases. The appendix in Authentic-ish British prints the exact database row used for each ingredient, so any number here can be checked. How every number is computed sets out the method.

Allergens. gluten, milk, eggs.

The method is in the book

Victoria sponge with buttercream is one of British baking's great originals. This version won't fool anyone in a blind tasting. The whipped cream is the first thing to slip out, and the cake goes stale twice as fast. But you've still got a golden, fluffy sponge and the tingle of raspberry jam. If you're desperate for the full nostalgia trip, make the proper one and don't look back. But if you just want to eat cake this month without hiding the evidence, this does the job and won't send you straight to the sofa.

The quantities and the method for this dish are in Authentic-ish British, along with 56 more. Buy the paperback