day 286: very vanilla butter sponge cake

the finished triple layer very vanilla butter cake ... it was simply delicious, the photo doesn't do it justice :)

day 286 and it is a happy day today as my sweet mum has returned from singapore safely :)  being such a sweet mum she told steve to go off to work for the day and she would look after me ... steve jumped at the idea!  my mum is also one of my biggest pinterest supporters and said if i found a recipe she would be my kitchen team for today's creation.  after seeing the abuse of our eggs by my other half, she also suggested perhaps we make the most of the opportunity to save some eggs from being graffitied by using a recipe that needs lots of them :)  i totally agreed and, as steve was busy at work, the likelihood of getting through a blog post without any graffittied  eggs mysteriously turning up also seemed like a challenge we could definitely take on ... we shall see ;)

the very vanilla butter sponge cake recipe from sweetapolita seemed to fit the bill perfectly as it uses 6(!) eggs and as a bonus we also had the rest of the ingredients in the pantry.  the recipe is pinned to my recipe must do's board on pinterest.  you definitely need the heavy machinery out as i can hear mum from the bedroom pulling the mixer out of the cupboard.  according to my kitchen team, the recipe is very straightforward but does require a little time and effort.  mum originally thought she would just need the two tins for the cake but soon discovered the recipe makes a huge amount of mixture and this is definitely a three tier cake.

my mum couldn't get over how much mixture there was was ... mamma mia there was a lot ;)

the baked sponges

the only variations made in the test kitchen were to the icing for this recipe.  we weren't having a party tonight so after a p365 team discussion we went with plum jam and cream filling between the layers and a dusting of icing sugar on top ... a more victorian take on a sponge cake ;)

we used plum jam and whipped cream as the layer filling

outcome:  thanks to my sweet mum we have an outcome ... seriously AWESOME.  my mum is a great baker and this cake didn't disappoint, it was SO yummy.  i didn't have to do any dishes so i wasn't deterred by what mess this cake made, not that it would have mattered it tasted way to good to care.  the plum jam added a nice tartness to the cake so that it was powerfully sweet, something i appreciate in a good cake recipe.  this isn't a heavy cake at all, very light and fluffy.  if you added the meringue butter cream frosting to this cake you would have the ultimate in non-chocolate birthday cakes )

my sincere thanks to sweetapolita for this awesome, slightly overwhelming recipe.  if want any amazing food eye candy have a look at this link that has their 10 most liked recipes from 2011 ... holy moly, i think i may need to try more of their cake recipes, absolutely stunning looking cakes :)