Grandma Ada was my heroine as a child. She is really the reason I became so fascinated with food and in particular baking. Our family regularly visited the farm where Grandma and Granddad lived and were always spoilt with homecooked feasts and an endless supply of meticulously perfected baking.
Sponges were always light as a feather, moist and softly golden. In particular I have the fondest memories of the one filled with Jelly! Grandma used a good old packet of Gregg’s raspberry jelly crystals which to be fair is the traditional family favourite, and is in fact quite delicious. When Grandma died I inherited her collection of recipes, an oh so loved collection of handwritten recipes, bursting with newspaper cut outs, recipes written on the back of receipts stashed between the beautifully scribed blue pages of the original book . All this history held together with several layers of various kinds of tape! This is one of several sponge recipes that feature, but was described as being ‘for jelly or cream’.
In this recipe I have made a real raspberry jelly which gave the cake a real raspberry punch. Feel free to use Gregg’s (just reduce the amount of water in the jelly by half). The sponge can also be cooked in one tin and split but the cooking time will be longer. Enjoy. Thanks Grandma Ada xx