Can I Make a 23cm Victoria Sponge Cake?

Our answer

Nigella's Victoria Sponge has classic vanilla sponge layers that are sandwiched with jam and whipped cream. Nigella uses a combination of plain (all-purpose) flour and cornflour (cornstarch) as this gives a softer crumb and a more tender cake. The recipe uses 4 eggs and 225g each of flours (combined weight), butter and sugar. This makes a fairly deep 20cm (8-inch) cake. Some recipes would use this quantity to also make a 23cm (9-inch) cake with slightly thinner layers, and if you do this then the baking time is likely to be closer to 20 minutes.

If you want a deeper 23cm cake then you would need to increase the ingredients quantities by 25%, or one quarter. This would mean using 5 eggs, 280g butter and sugar, 250g flour and 30g cornflour (cornstarch). You should add any milk 1 tablespoon at a time until the batter is a soft dropping consistency and the amount of milk will partly depend on the size of the eggs used, but you should not need more than 3 tablespoons of milk. The baking time for the sponge layers should be 25-30 minutes, or until the sponges are risen, firm to the touch on top and the edges should be starting to shrink away from the sides of the cake pans. A cake tester inserted into the centres should come out clean. However, we would mention that larger sponges can be slightly more difficult to bake evenly and as we have not tried this quantity of cake batter ourselves, we are unable to guarantee the results.