Refined sugar free Victoria Sponge recipe

Your favourite tea time cake just got a refined sugar free makeover and you’re going to love it.

Oh honey! Our refined sugar free Victoria sponge is perfect for anyone looking to cut down their sugar intake but can’t bear to bid farewell to cake. Using frozen berries to make a quick compote is a delicious replacement for jam and really reduces the refined-sugar content of this recipe. We’ve chosen strawberries but you could use a mix of your favourite berries. We’ve decorated the cake with edible flowers but you could use even more berries if you’d prefer. This cake isn’t vegan as we’ve used eggs and buttermilk, but you could make these raw carrot cake slices with vegan cashew nut frosting instead.

Ingredients

• 220ml vegetable oil
• 2 eggs
• 300g organic honey
• 200ml buttermilk
• 100g ground almonds
• 300g plain flour
• 1tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 2tsp white wine vinegar
• 2tsp vanilla extract

for the strawberry compote:

• 400g frozen strawberries, defrosted
• 1 apple, diced
• juice of 1 lemon
• 400ml whipping cream
• edible flowers, to decorate

You will need:

• 3x 6 inch round cake tins, greased and lined with parchment

Method

1. Preheat oven to 170C/Gas 3. Whisk together the oil, eggs, honey and buttermilk until well blended. Sift the flour and ground almonds together and whisk in the wet ingredients, mix until smooth. Whisk in the bicarb, vinegar and vanilla extract.
2. Divide the mix between 3 cake tins and bake for 40-45mins. Remove from the oven and leave to cook in the tins for 10 mins before turning out and left to cool fully on a wire rack.
3. Meanwhile, to make the compote, add the strawberries, apple and lemon juice to a saucepan, and bring to the boil, stirring constantly and breaking up the fruits. Reduce the compote by 1/3, blitz with a hand blender and leave to cool.
4. To assemble, whip the cream until it holds a stiff peak, because not to over-whip, but also make sure that the cream isn’t too soft. Place one layer of the sponge on a serving plate or cake stand, add 1/3 of the cream and smooth to the edges with a palette knife. Top with compote and repeat for the second layer and top with the final sponge. Using the remaining cream, coat the top of the cake and decorate with edible flowers.