The Proper Sponge Cake

For what it is worth, I have never had much luck in baking cakes. I know I have made some pretty cupcakes before but that is pretty much as far a venture as I would go with baking cakes. You see, I have really bad experiences with baking cakes (cheese cakes do not count!). Okay, let me rephrase that sentence as I have baked banana cakes before successfully - what I meant to say is that, I have been cursed to make ugly cakes whenever I try to make fancy cakes, i.e, sponge cakes and with filling.

But the curse is now broken.

I have successfully baked the common, but tricky, sponge cake AND filled it with a nice layer of strawberry jelly! You have no idea how happy I was when the sponge cake came out beautifully. It didn't even sink in the middle (but a little the next day) or have burn bits! *does the happy dance*. As such, I am VICTORIOUS!

Thanks to this video from VideoJug, my cake came out beautifully. The only difference in the recipe is that I used real vanilla bean instead of essence of vanilla as suggested by videojug, which is why there are tiny black dots in my batter. It does make all the difference in taste.

Mmm...spongy!

Real sponge cake do not use baking powder but relies heavily on the air bubbles created by beating the eggs up to a proper batter. You can choose to add 1/4 cup of butter at the end or not - making all the difference if you are counting calories. Angel cakes are made from the same batter too, and they are that angelic for a reason ;)

You can refer to the video for the recipe but I will post it here for you anyway with my strawberry jelly. The ingredients are really simple but you do need an electric beater lest you want to have carpal tunnel syndrome.

Vanilla Sponge Cake:
8 eggs, separate the yolks and whites into two bowls
190gram/6.7 oz of sugar
95 grams/3.3 oz flour
55 grams/ 2 oz cornflour
45 grams/ 1.6 oz butter, melted
1 vanilla pod, beans scraped out


Method:
Preheat your oven to 350 F.

Just yolks, doubled in size

1. Beat your yolks with an electric beater for 1 minute and add 1/3 of the sugar and the vanilla beans in. Beat for another 4-5 minutes until the yolks double in size and looks a pale yellow. Set aside.

Stiff peaks

2. Wash your electric beater's whisk properly. A drop of the yolk is all it takes to sabotage the whole cake because your egg whites would not be able to rise to stiff peaks, which is essential for your sponge cake. Once your whisks are washed, re-attach and start beating your egg whites for 30 seconds first to get them "warmed"up.

Combine the yolks and whites

3. Add the remaining of the sugar bit by bit as you beat the egg whites to stiff peaks. It must be stiff peaks, as shown in the picture.

Gently

4. Now you can combine the yolks and the whites together. Pour the yolks into the egg whites and with a spatula, gently fold the mixture until well incorporated. Do not over mix, as soon as you see that both yolks and whites are combined, move on to the next step.

5. Add your corn flour and flour through a sift into the batter. Fold the mixture to combine again, very gently. Once that is done, add your melted butter in and combine again.

A quick snap shot

Pour the mixture into a 11 inch baking pan (I used a 9-inch spring form pan, so I filled it up 3/4 of the pan and pour the rest of the batter into little ramekins) and bake for 30 minutes. Test with skewers to check if the cake is done, if not, bake for another 5 minutes and check again.

Fresh out of the oven

Let the sponge cake cool before trying to get it out of the pan.

Strawberry Jelly

Meanwhile, make your strawberry jelly, which essentially strawberry jam. All you need is 250grams of fresh strawberries and 25 gram sugar. Put the two ingredients together in a pot and mash it up with your hands or with a potato masher. Cook for 30 minutes on medium heat until it becomes a thick red, gloopy jam. Wait for it to cool before using it to fill the cake.

halved

To fill the cake, use a very sharp knife and cut the cake into halves horizontally. Spread the strawberry jelly on the bottom layer of the cake and place the top layer after. Chill for 30-45 minutes before serving with a sprinkle of icing sugar.

Yum

FYI, the cake is now gone. *burp*