Mini Victoria Sponge

Thank you to everyone who came out to our Facebook Takeover party for Happy Homicides 6: Cookin' Up Crime! We had so much fun with it, and hope you did as well. Winners of the various author's giveaways are posted on the event page.

Fans of a traditional tea will already be familiar with Victoria Sponge. It's buttercream and strawberry jam sandwiched between two delicious layers of sponge cake, dusted with confectioners sugar. I don't see anything not to like about that!

I created an individual treat just for the Facebook Takeover party. Husband is always happy to be my taste tester for experiments :) I share it with you now, because it's too tasty to keep to myself.

Mini Victoria Sponge - For each one, you'll need:

Dessert shells or small sponge cake (you can use a 2" biscuit cutter to cut rounds from a sponge cake)
Buttercream (see recipe below)
Strawberry jam
Confectioners sugar

Place a dessert shell or sponge cake round on a plate. Put 2 T of buttercream in center and spread out to edges. Put 2 T of strawberry jam over buttercream and spread out to edges. Dust with confectioners sugar.

Buttercream

1 stick unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
1/4 t table salt, or 1/2 t Kosher salt
1/2 t vanilla (or to taste)
1 C confectioners sugar (or as needed to get consistency you want - buttercream should hold it's shape when placed on the cake; runny icing is not what we're going for here)

Cream butter and salt until butter is smooth; add vanilla and beat for 1 minute (start slowly so the vanilla doesn't fly out of the bowl). Slowly add confectioners sugar to mixer at low speed; once all sugar is incorporated, beat at medium speed for 30 seconds until everything is incorporated. At this point, I took the bowl off the mixing stand and used a spatula to add more confectioners sugar until it was the consistency I wanted.

Enjoy!