Bake My First Cake

Bake My First Cake

Baking cakes can be such a wholesome experience, taking simple ingredients from your kitchen and turning them into a sweet treat in your own home.

With so many flavours to choose from, it’s best to start with a true classic. Once you’ve mastered it, you can experiment with flavours and sizes. So, let’s begin with a Victoria sponge equal-weight cake. This recipe will guide you step-by-step, showing you how and when to use your equipment and explaining why we use certain ingredients.

The methods in this recipe are great practice for cake making in general:

Always sift your flour to remove any lumps that may form during storage.
Grease your cake tins with butter or spread (I like to use a sheet of kitchen towel for this).
Preheat your oven before you start mixing about 30 minutes ahead, so it’s at the right temperature when your cake goes in.
When the timer goes off, check that your cake is cooked, as every oven behaves a little differently.

Equipment You’ll Need

Don’t worry - there’s no need for anything fancy to get started! Just a few basic tools will see you through your first cake:

Mixing bowl – big enough to mix your batter comfortably.
Whisk – an electric hand whisk or stand mixer makes things quicker, but a hand whisk will do the job just fine.
Scales – for accurate ingredient measurements.
Sieve – to sift your flour and keep it light.
Spatula – perfect for folding in ingredients and scraping the bowl clean.
Two 8-inch / 20 cm round cake tins – for baking the sponge layers.
Cooling rack – helps your cakes cool evenly.
Skewer – for testing if your cake is cooked (or use your thinnest knife or smallest fork).