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The Victoria sponge is widely considered a classic British dessert, flaunting its cultural lineage in its very title. Named after the 19th century monarch who also gives her name to the era of her dominion, this is a very royal cake. And apparently you don’t get any more British than the (German) royalty…

 

There are no twists to this tale – as implicit in the name, this cake was Victoria’s favourite. It’s an incredibly simple dessert consisting of equal quantities of eggs, caster sugar, self-raising flour and butter. This is baked into two sponge cakes that sit on top of one another, slathered generously with jam and cream and dusted with icing sugar.

 

Interestingly but unsurprisingly, the history of this cake is embedded in the tradition of high tea. Anna Russell, referred to mostly by her lofty title ‘the Duchess of Bedford’, is credited with the invention of high tea. As one of Victoria’s somewhat peckish ladies in waiting, she couldn’t quite make it to dinner time without an afternoon snack and a pot of tea snuck to her room by the servants, so the story goes.  

 

As time passed, Russell invited her friends to join her for little tea parties, and the menu expanded to include cakes and dainty sandwiches. Before long, Victoria hopped on the bandwagon and began hosting these parties herself, with all her favourite cakes on offer. And her most favourite of all was the eponymous Victoria sponge, thus cementing its status as a cultural classic.  

 

But this cake has another incarnation – the Passover sponge. A very popular cake within the Jewish community and enjoyed during Passover (again, clue in the name), this dairy-free variant is usually made with martzo meal and orange or apple juice. This is due to the prohibition of raw wheat and raising agents in the kosher diet, and the rule that milk is not allowed in a dessert following a meat-based meal. The Passover sponge is usually flavoured with almonds, apples, dark chocolate and pecans. This cake is said to be so popular that many Jewish families have their own recipes, handed down through the generations.

 

All in all, the sponge recipe is considered the de facto basic cake mixture, from which many different desserts are elaborated.

Et voila, that is the story of the sponge cake.