A Cheap and Cheerful Victoria Sponge with The Jolly Journal - Giveaway! (Closed)

Ho, ho, ho!

Hello m'lovelies! Myself and a handful of lovely bloggers recently sent in contributions for The Jolly Journal, a festive book that is all about throwing your first Christmas on a budget. Admittedly it's a little surreal actually seeing my name in print (in an actual book, no less!) and I am super excited to share it with you today! I'm that excited, I'm going to celebrate by doing the unheard of and host a quick giveaway over here. Party time! Christmas dance! Exclamation marks!

I decided to share a cheap and cheerful Victoria sponge recipe, read on if you're interested!

Ingredients

- 1 vanilla cake mix
- 3 medium, free range eggs
- 4 tablespoons of vegetable oil
- 180ml water
- Seedless value strawberry jam
- 1 small tub of double cream
- Icing sugar
- 2 x 8" round cake tins

Method

1: Preheat your oven to 180c/Gas mark 4 (this will vary depending on your oven, my cooker is ancient so I set my oven to 200c!)

2: Grease up those cake tins! I find that adding a layer of baking paper to the bottom of the tray helps with a smooth removal.

3: Empty the contents of the sachet into a large bowl, add all 3 eggs, water, vegetable oil and mix together for around until smooth.

4: Evenly dish out the mixture into your cake tins, filling just above halfway. Pop into the centre of the oven and cook for about 25 minutes (I rarely use timing guidelines, I do the fork test... pop a fork through the centre of the cake, if there's no cake gloop left on the fork when you remove it then they're ready to go!)

5: While your cakes are cooking, start whipping up your cream! Pour your cream into a large bowl and whisk until stiff. If you're whisking by hand then have patience, it took me almost five minutes to start seeing a difference to the texture of the cream! Pop into the fridge for ten minutes.

6: Pop a few tablespoons of the jam into a bowl and stir until smooth, this makes the spreading process much easier and it won't damage your cakes when you're ready to use it. Once your cakes are cool, spread the jam on one half. Remove your cream from the fridge and smooth a hearty portion onto the other. Be careful not to press down on the cream, as it will spill over the sides. Carefully place one half on top of the other and put your cake into the fridge to set.

7: After about ten minutes, your cake should be ready to come out of the fridge for decoration! To make my cake look extra Christmassy, I sprinkled icing sugar over a paper snowflake stencil and added some berries. You could use edible glitter, fondant shapes or even a sprig of holly to decorate.

And you're finished! A simple, cheap and cheerful cake to indulge in over Christmas! x

Giveaway Time! (closed)
If you enjoyed this recipe and want to see more then I'm giving you guys a chance to win one of two copies of The fabulous Jolly Journal. All you have to do is leave a comment below and I will select the winners at random on Wednesday 17th December. Don't forget to leave me your Twitter handle or email address so I can get in touch with you should you win! Easy peasy!

Thank you all so much for entering. Winners have been announced via Twitter!