Vegan Victoria sponge cake (with raspberries)

I didn’t think that  making a vegan Victoria sponge cake would be possible as you may have read about here. I admit it, I was wrong, I have just made the best victoria sponge cake ever. It was so good, I may be slightly biased because I’ve only just finished eating it, but wow, it was good. You can replace the raspberries/raspberry jam with strawberries/strawberry jam if you prefer (but I think it’s better with raspberry). You will need two 20cm tins for this recipe.

Ingredients:

For the cake

250g plain flour
3tsp baking powder
250g sugar
75ml oil
250ml soya milk
2 tsp apple cider vinegar
2 tsp vanilla essence

For the filling and icing

100g vegan margarine
250g/10oz icing sugar
6 heaped tbsp raspberry Jam
Handful of fresh raspberries to decorate

Method:

For the cake

1. Preheat the oven to 180c
2. Pour the soya milk into a jug and add the cider vinegar, set aside to curdle
3. Sift the flour and baking powder into a large bowl
4. Add the sugar and mix well
5. Grease two 7inch/20cm tins with plenty of vegan margarine (do not make the whole cake in one tin, it won’t work)
6. Pour the jug of milk/cider vinegar and the oil and vanilla essence into the flour and mix well until incorporated. Don’t overmix.
7. Divide the mixture equally between two tins and bake for 25 – 30 minutes (the cake will be ready when a toothpick comes out clean or when it springs back when touched)
8. Let the cakes cool in the tins for 20 minutes before taking them out of the tin
9. Leave to cool for another 30 minutes before icing

For the filling/icing

1. Combine the vegan margarine and icing sugar
2. Spread 3/4 of the butter icing on one of the sponge cakes
3. Spread the raspberry jam evenly on top of the butter icing
4. Then add the other sponge cake on top of the raspberry jam/butter icing covered first cake
5. On top of the second layer of cake spread the remaining 1/4 of the butter icing on top
6. Add fresh raspberries on top to decorate