Under the Sea Victoria Sponge

I'm afraid that I have a confession to make. I haven't yet watched an episode of the Great British Bake Off. But I do like baking, and I do like a challenge, which is why this new linky caught my eye. Jenny from Mummy Mishaps and Helen from The Crazy Kitchen have set a baking challenge to bloggers. The theme for each week is set by that week's Great British Bake Off episode, and this week it's Victoria Sponge and Angel Food Cake. To take part, we have to bake and blog a recipe inspired by the show.

I'm pretty good at a basic sponge cake, if I do say so myself, and I use it as the basis of lots of different cakes. This week our summer theme day was Under The Sea, and so the children and I made an Under The Sea cake. The Victoria Sponge itself wasn't much of a challenge, but to make it a bit different I bought some ready made fondant icing, which I've never used before, and we used it to make some fish themed decorations for the cake.

My Victoria Sponge recipe has been passed down from my Mum and it's very simple - 6oz margarine (I use Stork), 6oz caster sugar, 3 eggs and 6oz self-raising flour. To make enough butter icing to cover the top, middle and sides of the cake you need 75g butter, 175g icing sugar, food colouring and a small amount of milk. For this icing I also mixed in some glittery blue sprinkle things.

The decorations are made from the ready to roll icing, mixed with food colouring and cut out and decorated in the manner of playdough. I'm rather pleased with the result, it's not a traditionally pretty Victoria Sponge but it's fun, and I love the fact that the children helped to make it. It tasted great too!