Nan's Birthday Cake: 10 billion parts icing sugar to one part cream cheese...

The cream cheese icing WOULD NOT THICKEN!!!!!!!!!!!!

This wasn't the most beautiful cake, though Mum and Brother did a very good job with my terrible cream cheese icing that just seemed to get progressively runnier (multiple fruitvalanches followed because of this fact), but people came back for seconds and it meant that, for once, Nan didn't spend all of her birthday stuck in the kitchen. That's still a success.

For the Victoria Sponge


10oz caster sugar
10oz margarine/soft unsalted butter
10oz self raising flour
4 room temperature eggs#

HOLD YOUR HORSES BEFORE BAKING THIS, I NEED TO DOUBLE CHECK THE RECIPE!

1. Whisk the butter and sugar together for as long as you can bear.

2. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing in between, and add a little bit of flour to stop it curdling if needs be.

3. Sift in the flour and fold it in gently.

4. Divide between two prepared 8 inch sandwich tins, preferably quite deep ones (but not 8 inch CAKE tins, there is a difference...)

For the cream cheese icing


Go find your own cream cheese recipe. The one I used from the cake decorating book didn't work. At all.

To assemble


A variety of summer fruits
Icing sugar

1. Just prior to serving, artfully arrange the fruits on the top of the cake.

2. Sift icing sugar over the top.

There. That wasn't so difficult, was it?

Well, it IS difficult if your cream cheese icing has gone wrong and everything keeps sliding off...

But the victoria sponge recipe is definitely a keeper. It was moist, fluffy, and deep! And the cream cheese icing was a winner taste-wise; it always has such a lovely tang to it. A hit in all but the looks department!