Thank you, Andunwoody

Copied and pasted from Andunwoody's comment.  

This works well with a hand held mixer:- 6 ounces of Stork margarine, 6 ounces of self raising flour, 6 ounces of caster sugar, 3 eggs, half teaspoon of baking powder and a teaspoon of vanilla essence. Put all the ingredients in a bowl and with the mixer turned of lightly stir all the ingredients together, the idea is to break the eggs and combine most of the flour, this way you don't have clouds of flour flying around the kitchen. Turn the mixer on and whizz everything together for about a minute, don't get too hung up on *light and fluffy*. Everything needs to be combined so you might need to stop the mixer and use a spatula to bring the flour at the bottom of the bowl into the mixture, when you have finished the mixture will be lighter in cloud due to the air you have incorporated. This is the best and easiest sponge recipe ever, forget all that creaming the butter and sugar and then beating the eggs in malarkey....this never fails and is easy to increase or decrease the quantity just remember two ounces of flour, sugar and marg for every egg, unless you get into really large quantities the baking powder and vanilla stay the same. Swap a tablespoon or two of flour for cocoa (never hot chocolate...to sweet) for chocolate cake. Either bake in two lined sandwich tins, cool and fill with jam for a Victoria Sponge or use paper cases in a bun tin for Bear and friends sized snacks......go mad put a few currants or chocolate chips in the mix. Oven temperature needs to be about 180 degrees and bake for around 20 minutes, all ovens vary so just keep you eye on them. This is a very child friendly recipe, I used to work in pre schools and have made these with the children.

I am so going to use this.  Thank you, it looks like the sort of recipe you should always, always keep handy, and I shall!

I had a go at the Magic Custard Cake last night, and it worked okay.  I shall definitely be doing it again, as bear and DH both thoroughly approved.  It did end up with a 'pastry' base, a custard middle and a fluffy sponge on top.  I suggest you google it if you are interested, as all the recipes I saw seemed to be copyright, which is pretty impossible with recipes, especially as there are many variations out there.  I think I will try the lemon version next.  I would definitely consider the hand mixer as a necessity.  It reminded me of Impossible Pie, and I shall definitely have to do that again as well.  

I didn't get a chance to investigate HFW's recipe book of fruit.  Bear took it upstairs to read. I am a bit braced.  

Edited to add Sarah Head's recipe for flapjack, which looks very useful, but I can't easily make it gluten free as porridge oats are often contaminated with gluten.  I may have a go for bear and the locusts friends as it will make a nice and filling change for them.

I've never used a mixer for my cakes and as we don't have an electric hand whisk, I beat everything together as my mother originally taught me, although she liked her hand whisk later on. If you don't want to beat anything, try some flapjacks. Our family recipe is 8oz margarine, 2 dessertspoons of golden syrup (heat these together in the microve for about 30 seconds until melted, then mix in 1tsp bicaking powder mixed in 2 tablespoons of hot water. Add this to previously mixed 8oz porridge oats, 7ozs sugar and 5 ozs of flour. i.e. you are adding wet ingredients to dry ingredients. Stir and placed in an oiled baking tray. Cook in a medium oven for 15-20 minutes. You can add dried fruit and reduce the amount of sugar or grated apple or other fruit, but this makes the mixture wetter so needs longer to cook. My sister and I could cook this ourselves when we were eight. It's nowhere near as sweet as commercial flapjack