Victoria Sponge Recipe Please! (and cake help generally)

[Forago]

Hi There - I have only got one cake recipe that I have used endlessly but I think I can do better. I like baking but I am the kind of person that needs explicit instructions, down to the last gram. Any hoo I make basic cupcakes and a Victoria sponge birthday cake approx. 3 x a year for the dc birthdays. I use a recipe I found years ago in an Annabel Karmel book (probably because that is all I had for ds1 first birthday) which is:

100g caster sugar (I use golden)
100g margarine (I use flora)
100g self raising flour
2 eggs
teaspoon of vanilla essence

I often double everything up to do 24 instead of 12 cakes - i.e double everything to 200g and 4 eggs.

This seems to work out ok for the cupcakes which taste and look pretty good.

However, I use this same mix for larger cake tins to make Victoria Sponge birthday cakes and I don't think the proportions are really right. So for a medium cake I'd be up to 5/6 eggs and 8 eggs for the large tin (which I now need for size of family) - which seems ridiculous so I sometimes only put 6 in. This worked ok in old oven at old house (non fan-assisted) though took hours to cook through. At new house it burns on the outside before is stops being sloppy on the inside and I have to cover it in foil.

I am pretty sure this is because the proportions are wrong for a larger cake mix. But I don't know what they should be. Can anyone help?

Also, can I substitute butter for the marg? (which I'd prefer). I also end up mixing by hand as this seems to make both cupcakes and big cakes come out better - but it's very time-consuimg and I'd rather use my mixer - should that work?

Plus I need some more recipe for different types of cake!! :)

Dont use essence, always use extract, so much nicer.

Sorry to hijack OP but I have a quick question about a basic sponge. I also weigh the eggs and then use equal quantities of everything else. However, I'm making DD's birthday cake and have bought a rectangular tin. I did a test run last night with a six egg mix but it came out quite thin and dense.

What difference would it make using self raising? Or baking powder? I'm planning on doing three different coloured layers so would quite like to avoid making six square cakes!

Devon, so you made one large sponge using a 12 0z mix? That why I dont make I in one tin.

What sizes your tin

Another vote for Mary Berry's Victoria sponge - never fails. Also Mary Berry Moist Chocolate cake never fails. Sorry I can't do that link thing but you can google it.
I often double the ingredients, or sometimes treble them if I want a 3 layer cake. Any cake left goes in the freezer.

Nana, is that the one where she mixes her cocoa to a paste first then adds everything else and beats?

Yes nanny that's the one - it's more of a "grown up" choc cake really. I have usually done it with vanilla butter cream (I think choc butter cream can be a bit much with a rich(ish) choc cake) but I made one for my grand-daughter's birthday recently (she's teenager) and she preferred fresh cream, so I used whipping cream and added icing sugar to give it a bit more substance and it was delicious - definitely better than butter cream.

Mind I did a 4 layer cake and so did Mary's recipe x 2 and it worked really well - it was devoured!