This Victoria sponge breaks the mould of the classic equal parts sugar/flour/ butter/eggs. I made over 30 cakes to get the ratio just right. By replacing some of the butter with egg yolks and adding double cream, we get an extra-moist cake with good structure and lots of flavour. Reducing the butterfat also allows the other flavours, like the milkiness of the double cream, to come through, providing a wonderfully rich and tender backdrop for your cream and fruit. Roasted strawberries could be swapped for jam, but the rich syrup is unbeatable.

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 170°C/150°C fan.
• To make the roasted strawberries, wash the strawberries briefly and halve. If they’re small, just leave them whole. Toss with the sugar on a baking tray. Roast for 30–40 minutes until soft, syrupy and slightly shrunken. The strawberries will go a deepenr shade of red. You can keep cooking them for up to an hour. Let them cool and move into a container with all the syrup. You can store them in the fridge for 3–5 days.
• Preheat the oven to 190°C/170°C fan and line the tins. Set aside.
• To make the cake, cream the soft butter with the salt and sugar for 2 minutes on a medium speed using a stand mixer. This is enough for the butter and sugar to aerate slightly and become a little paler, but not so much that it is whipped. It is better to err on the side of caution – we don't want too much air at this stage!
• Mix together the cream, whole eggs, egg yolks, vanilla extract and milk. Set aside.
• Sift together the plain flour and baking powder. Set aside.
• Starting with the liquid, alternate adding the liquid and dry ingredients into the creamed butter and sugar, in around three batches, scraping down as necessary.
• Divide the mixture between the two tins, around 475–500g per cake. Sprinkle one cake with the 25g sugar. This will be your top.
• Bake for 25 minutes, then check if the sponge is golden and bouncy and pulling away from the sides slightly. Bake for an additional 5 minutes if it doesn't look or feel ready.
• Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then remove and cool completely on a rack.
• To make the filling, whip the cream with the crème fraîche, if using, and caster sugar, if using, to very soft peaks, then set aside.
• Spread the cream filling over the unsugared sponge, leaving a 2–3cm border so it doesn’t splurge too much, followed by generous dollops of the roasted strawberries and their syrup. You may not need to use it all. As a splurging insurance policy, you can pop your assembled cake in the fridge or freezer to firm up the cream a bit.
• Place the sugared sponge on top. Sprinkle with icing sugar, if desired. Serve with any extra roasted strawberry syrup.

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