Ann Reardon

Perfect Sponge Cake Recipe: Light Fluffy Moist and Tall

victoria sponge cake recipe how to cook that
 

The perfect sponge cake should be light, fluffy, moist, tall, soft on the edges and of course beautiful. Easy with the right recipe, painfully frustrating with all of the rest.  After testing many, many sponge cake recipes my kids got tired of taking sponge cake in their lunch boxes to school. So I gave them a break for a while. When I came back to it I retested the best ones but was still not satisfied, I tried a heap more that instead of using different amounts of the key ingredients used different methods of combining them. Eventually I tweeked a few of the best ones to come up with this light, fluffy and beautifully moist sponge cake recipe. My favorite.

Sponge Cake Recipe Ingredients

2 cups or 320g (11.29 ounces) plain all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups or 327g (11.53 ounces) sugar
1 Tbsp or 3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp or 7.5g (0.26 ounces) gelatin (powdered)

1/2 cup or 125ml vegetable oil such as canola oil
7 egg yolks or 105g (3.7 ounces)
1 cup or 250millilitres (8.45 fluid ounces) cold water

7 egg whites or 252g (8.89 ounces)
1/2 tsp cream of tartar

To decorate:
1 punnet or 250g (8.82 ounces) or approx 1 2/3 cups strawberries,
600millilitres (20.29 fluid ounces) cream (35% fat),
2 Tbsp icing (powdered) sugar,
1 tsp vanilla essence
(recipe source: adapted from this recipe)

 

Preheat the oven to 320F (160 degrees Celsius) if using a fan forced oven.

Place your flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and gelatin into a bowl and whisk it to incorporate air and get rid of any lumps.

Make a well in the centre of the flour mixture then pour in the oil, egg yolks and water in that order. Set that bowl to one side.

Put your egg whites and cream of tartar into another bowl and whisk on high speed until you get soft peaks.

Mix together the flour mixture for 30 seconds only or until just combined, don’t over-mix this.

Using a spatula fold in your egg whites in three batches.

Line but do not grease two 20cm (7.87 inches) cake tins and spread the mixture evenly between the two.

Bake in a slow oven, 320F (160 degrees Celsius) for 55-60 minutes.

When it is done leave in the tin and cool upside down.

tall moist fluffy sponge cake recipe reardon
See the video for how to decorate your sponge cake.

or try the ombre or rainbow cake decorating tutorials

by Ann Reardon How To Cook That

© All Rights Reserved Reardon Media PL 2013

My Cookbook

ann reardon crazy sweet creations cookbook
Stores that sell my book listed by country: http://bit.ly/ARcookbook
All recipe quantities in the book are in grams, ounces and cups.

1,190 Comments View Comments

  1. Is the gelatin absolutely necessary and when dividing this recipe in half, would you use 3 or 4 eggs?

  2. Thanks for the recipe. Wanted to ask if one could use milk in place of water and no flavour

  3. hi ann
    is this the recipe used for the candy crush cake??? also i dont have a square tin for the candy crush cake. does it work best in a square, loaf or circle?
    awaiting your reply

  4. For the recipe, do we have to use cream of tartar? Can it be replaced or excluded?

  5. Hi Anne, can I use this cake on frozen disney princess doll cake? If not any suggestion except chocolate cake.many thanks

  6. Rating: 5

    Hi Ann, thank u for your recipe n your great video. I am enjoy alot with the video

    Anyway about the recipe, Is that ok to replace the cold water with a cold milk?? Thanks

  7. Rating: 5

    Miss Ann, your recipe and video was amazing, I am enjoy to see that.

    Anyway, can we change the cold water with a cold milk? Thanks

  8. Hello,
    I have a question.
    Is this the instant gelatine powder or the kind that has to be softened in water then heated and mixed into creams and stuff?
    We have two types if gelatine here,so I dont know which kind should I buy.
    Btw,your cake looks so pretty and yummy 🙂

  9. Hi Ann, luv ur receipe cant wait to try it out. but can i use gelatin n leave out d tartaric acid? wld it come out well. awaiting ur reply

  10. Hi, cake looks fab. I would like to use this recipe for a birthday cake and cover in fondant. How long will the cake keep for once cooked.
    Many thanks

  11. I made the sponge OMG it was awesome sooooooo yummy the bad thing was that the cakes was t9o dense but was moist to ve a spong cake probably I knocjed out a bit of the air

  12. hi Ann, just love your recipe easy to follow… thank you soo much and now im going to make this yum yum super perfect sponge cake…

  13. I am planning to make this cake for a party which has about 40 people some I am thinking of making a two tiered cake with this recipe ad I am going to make a 1 and a half batch of this and staking them but some people say that sponge cakes are quite light and fluffy so if I stack them the bottom tier is going to squash and I need to insert those wooden sticks but I have a friend that Is a pro baker and I saw her add no sticks and It was a sponge so I dont really know wat to do can you pls give me advice I luv you thanka

    • Hi Phoebe, it depends on what you are decorating it with. I used 3 tiers without sticks for the ombre cake and it was fine. But if you were covering in fondant it is a lot heavier and you may need to use supports. For 40 people if you want dessert sized slices I would make three cakes with 2-3 tiers each

  14. Rating: 5

    OMG Thank you thank you thank you.
    I have always been pretty good at the decorating side of cakes but my baking has always let me down terribly despite trying several different recipes. Today, after following this one, I feel like I have hit the nail on the head. My hips will not like this at all

    • wonderful to hear caroline 😀

  15. Hello Ann 🙂
    I was wondering how this recipe could be converted to make cupcakes? ie. increase oven temp etc.
    Thanks 🙂

    • Hi Amy, I make cupcakes it in the same way, except I don’t tip it upside down and they take less time to cook.

  16. Hi Ann!
    I’m from the Philippines and we have agar jelly here instead of gelatine. I read up on the differences and its said that agar jelly needs to be brought to a boil before it sets, so I’m assuming it’ll work? Do you have any thoughts? I’d appreciate any answer as I’m baking an ombre cake for my cousin’s sweet 16.

    Thank you so much and I love your channel so much! I have been binge watching. 😀

    • Hi Macy, agar has quite a distinct flavour, I’d leave it out if you can’t get the gelatin

  17. hello , great recipe , looks nice i can not wait to try it .. yet, i would like to know what is the use of “cream of tartar” ? that is the first time i hear about it !

    • Rating: 4.5

      This is an excellent recipe. But this time I converted it to a angel tube pan cake and did 3/4 of the recipe rounding the 7 eggs to 5 eggs. The first time I made it in angel tube
      pan using the full recipe I felt cake was way too high so this time I used calculator and reduced all ingredients to 3/4. It still took 60 minutes to cook. Cake turned out like a chiffon cake. Excellent. Like a pound cake but light and fluffy. I do think that the gelatin makes a difference.

      • glad it worked well for you Regine 😀

    • Hi Menna, cream of tar tar or tartaric acid slightly increases the acidity and stabilizes the egg whites keeping them whipped

  18. The 250 ml cold water for the sponge cake – is it ice cold from the fridge or room temperature?

    • Hi Ag Yeo, cold from the fridge 😀

      • Hi Ann, thanks for the reply Just to let you know that before you replied, I followed your recipe with room temperature water and decorated it with whipping cream and fresh fruits. It turned out light, moist and fluffy. Thank you for your sharing.

  19. Hello Ann! hope things are good!!

    I was wondering if i can leave out both gelatin and cream of tarter? i do have the sheets of gelatin but not the powder and if wanted to juice fresh lemon juice for the substitution for cream of tarter, how much will i use?

    thank you!!

    • Hi brittney yes you can leave both out but the cake will not be quite as light and fluffy.

  20. Hi Ann, love your recipe and I want to try it. I don’t know cream of tartar can I use powdered or evaporated milk instead? Looking forward to ur reply

    • Hi Ololade, cream of tartar is also known as tartaric acid, the slight acidity helps stabilize the egg whites, you can use a little bit of lemon juice or leave it out.

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