Wow the little man is 9 already! Where did those 9 years go to??!!

Bailey isn’t usually fond of cake (weird for a kid I know!) but my fab work friends take it in turns to bake cakes for each others birthday, and lovely Hannah baked this Victoria sponge with mascarpone for Emma’s birthday, Emma being the kind and generous person she is suggested I take a slice home to share with Bailey… and he proceeded to inform me this was the cake he wanted for his birthday! What a winner! So this was Baileys 9th birthday, but the poor thing ended up with a sickness bug on his birthday so didn’t even get to eat a slice of it. However my neighbour Elsie had a charity garden viewing on the same day so being the organised freak I am I made a trial one the day before and apparently this was whipped up by the lovely residents of Bromley who came for a nosey round the garden in aid of charity. Very proud of the birthday boy though as he didn’t moan once about having such a rubbish birthday, and blew his candles out to make a wish. Don’t worry we did give him a day on holiday as his ‘birthday’ where he could choose whatever we did for the day and what we ate, so he did finally get to properly celebrate.

INGREDIENTS

• 225g butter, cut into cubes and softened
• 225g caster sugar
• 4 large free-range eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp salt
• 225g self-raising flour
  FOR THE FROSTING
• 250g mascarpone
• 1 tsp vanilla bean paste (or extract)
• 2 tbsp icing sugar, plus extra for dusting the top
  
• 6-7 tbsp raspberry jam
• 250g fresh raspberries (this is in the original recipe but I left it out of the cake I made for Bailey)

1. Preheat the oven to 180, 160 fan. Prepare 2 identical sandwich baking tins by lightly coating with soft butter or coating with parchment paper. As I was using silicone dishes for these I just rubbed in some butter to avoid the cake sticking.
2. Cream together the cubed butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Then beat in the eggs and stir through the vanilla extract.
   
3. Fold in the flour with 1 tsp salt until you have a smooth batter.
   
4. Divide the mixture between 2 prepared sandwich tins and bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes, preferably on the same shelf.
   
5. Check the cake is cooked by inserting a skewer into the middle of the cake. The skewer should come out clean and dry. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely on a wire rack.
   
6. Once the cakes are cool, you can start to make your filling.  Whisk the mascarpone, vanilla bean paste and icing sugar until smooth (don’t overwhip).
7. Place one of your baked cakes upside down on a plate or cake stand and spread with the raspberry jam.
   
8. Top the jam evenly with your mascarpone vanilla mix and add the raspberries if using (as mentioned above I left them out for this cake).
   
9. Top with the other cake, the right way up and dust with some icing sugar.
   
10. Add any candles or celebration ornaments on top and serve.