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Hi there. I recently made the Butterscotch Layer Cake from the How to be a Domestic Goddess book. I'm an experienced baker and have cooked many recipes from the book with great success, but this did not rise at all! I noticed afterwards that there is no raising agent in the recipe - it uses self-raising flour, but no additional bicarb or baking powder. Is this an omission, and if not, what might have gone wrong?
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Nigella's Butterscotch Layer Cake (from HOW TO BE A DOMESTIC GODDESS) is a Victoria sponge cake that is sandwiched with cream cheese and caramel sauce and drizzled with extra caramel sauce. The sponge itself has the exact same proportions of butter, flour, sugar and eggs as a classic Victoria sponge and can be made in a food processor or by the traditional creaming method.
The sugar is a mixture of golden (unrefined) caster sugar and a light brown muscovado sugar. The muscovado sugar adds a slight butterscotch flavour to the cake but should not affect the texture. There is raising agent in the form of baking powder contained in the self-raising flour and it should not be particularly necessary to add extra. However it is worth noting that self-raising flour does have a "best before" date as the effectiveness of the raising agents will diminish over time and can deteriorate more quicky in humid weather. So it could be that if the flour has been stored for some time then the cake may not rise as well. If you prefer to use plain flour and baking powder then Nigella usually uses 2 teaspoons of baking powder per 150g (1 cup) plain flour so you should use 3 teaspoons of baking powder for this recipe. The teaspoons used should also be 5ml measuring teaspoons and should be level, not heaped.
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