Can I Cook The Victoria Sponge With Only One Cake Tin?

Our answer

Nigella's Victoria Sponge is a classic sponge cake that can be filled with jam and whipped cream or buttercream. Nigella bakes the cake in two sandwich tins (cake pans), which are the usual tins for this type of layer cake.

Unfortunately you don't mention exactly what type of pan you have. A traditional French moule à manqué is a tin with a slight lip around the edge and the 20cm diameter pans are usually 3.5-4cm deep. This would not be deep enough to hold all of the cake batter and it will probably rise up and spill out of the cake pan as it bakes. If you have this type of tin then it is better to bake the two layers separately. Mix up half of the ingredients and bake one layer then clean out, grease and line the pan again and repeat with the other half of the ingredients. If you have a deep springform pan then it may be possible to bake the cake batter in just one pan, though it is not ideal. The oven temperature of 180c/160c fan (if you have an old French oven this is Th6) should remain the same and the cake is likely to take 30-40 minutes to bake. When you first check the cake, try to open the oven door carefully, as a gust of cold air can cause it to collapse. The cake should be golden, risen and firm to the touch and a cake tester inserted into the centre should come out clean. The sides of the cake may also be shrinking away slightly from the sides of the pan. The pan should still be greased and the base lined with baking parchment (parchment paper). However, as we have not tried to bake the cake this way, we are unable to guarantee the results.