Back from NYC with a Victoria Sandwich

It it hard to believe but three years have gone by since we said goodbye to one of our MD, PhD recipients as he headed off for his residency.  He now returns for his 3 year gastroenterology fellowship to our division. Having been a fan of cake hour and with a wife who was quite good baking and decorating cakes, we were happy to hear that they wanted to sign up for cake hour. Today marked the welcome return with a great cake and the little one that appeared since departure. Our baker said she made the cake with whatever she happened to have at home.  Obviously she had some ingredients for a pretty good cake because that is what we had.  Oh, and thrown in a few profiteroles to go with the cake.

Just happened to have all the stuff to make these at home!

The cake was a simple yellow sponge like cake with two layers. In between the layers were fresh strawberries in pasty cream.  It was frosted on the top and along the middle seam with some strawberry flavored butter cream that was lightened in taste and texture with some milk/  The top was very beautifully covered with frosting roses, swirls and beads. It was very pretty. 

Nicely done, indeed!

Quite elaborate looking when viewed from the top!

Roses and swirls and beads, oh my!

As was to be expected from someone who knows what they are doing, the cake tasted great. Good, soft, moist sponge with just the right amount of sugar.  It was light and flavorful leaving you wanting more.

Awesome filling with strawberries and pastry cream!

If you wanted more though, you could have one of the classic profiterole/cream puffs. They are made from standard Pâte à Choux and filled with pastry cream. These were also very good.

Classic cream puffs minus the powdered sugar!

Baked and puffed to a perfect golden brown!

After wondering what you could call this kind of impromptu cake, I watched an episode of the British Baking competition show where they had to make a "Victorian Sandwich", as one of the last creations. Who knew what that was but it turns out it was very similar to what our resident baker whipped up at home.  The contestants in the show had to create it without a recipe so it must also be  something you can whip up fairly quickly just like today's creation.  It is also made from yellow cake, strawberries and butter cream.  For all these reasons we will consider our cake to be a variation of but nonetheless a "Victoria Sandwich".

Typical Victoria Sandwich - you see the similarity, right?

In addition to a great cake, they brought along the little one that joined the family in NYC.  It wasn't her first cake hour but the first where she could stand on her own two feet!

Standing on her own!

Family portrait!