Perfect Sponge Cake Recipe: Light Fluffy Moist and Tall
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.
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
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Hi Ann,
What if my pan doesn’t have the little extensions on the side like your’s does? If I prop it up on two glasses to let it cool, I’ll probably get indent marks on the cake. Can I just turn it over on a cooling rack and raise the cooling rack using glasses? What happens if I don’t invert it? Any suggestions?
Love your website, emails and videos.
Thanks.
Clelia
Hi Ann is the gelatin necessary or optional
Hi Moza, the gelatin is acting as an emulsifier in this recipe keeping the fat and liquid together, it improves the texture of the cake. You can leave it out if you prefer.
Hello
I’m Rozan from Jordan, in was searching for a perfect sponge cake, I tried many but yours was really the best!! I’m amazed of the results!! PERFECT I love it 🙂
I dont know if this is going to sound dumb but you wrote 2 cups 300g but i thought that 2 cups was 500g so which one do i use
Hi Elizabeth, cups is a volume measurement so 1 cup of one substance will be heavier than another kind. 1 cup of water is 250g, 1 cup of flour is between 125 and 150g, so two cups of flour would be 250 to 300g (depends on the type of flour, sifted, etc).
Just measured out 2 cups of cake flour for this recipe and it weighed at exactly 300g.
thanks Tim 😀
hi ann
i live in fiji and gelatin and be quite expensive – is there a substitue?
can i go without it?
I tried this recipe twice…I n i am in absolute love with it .loved the sponginess although mine sank a lil at the bottom while cookin down as my pans dint have support like urs.(I thought that was the fault) do u think so too? Nevertheless it iced to be a beautiful cake, I so don’t wanna part with it and I wanna tweak a lil and use it for chocolate cakes and strawberry cakes. Do u think that’s possible? If so how much cocoa powder shud I add to make a chocolate cake?please reply.. Love uuuuuuuu!!
Hi ann my was very good I didn’t put gelatin because I can’t find in my contry
hey ann,
before i ask my question i want to thank you for al your amazing cake’s! I would really like to try this recipe for my birthdaycake, but they don’t have cream of tartar where i live (the Netherlands). what can i use as a substitude??
Hi Marc, so you have tartaric acid, it is the same thing. Otherwise try a small squeeze of lemon juice
Do I need the gelantine?
Hi Luca, it is working as an emulsifier in this cake and keeps the liquid and fat together and makes for a softer cake. You can leave it out if you prefer but the texture is not quite as good.
Hi there i made this cake and its the best i have ever tried. Just wondering what does the gelatine for?
Hi Rebecca the gelatine in this cake is working as an emulsifier to keep the liquids and fats from separating, it results in a softer cake.
The cake is beautiful….really thankyou for the recipe. The only issue i had was that it wasn’t rising as well and also the cake seemed to shrivel just a tad. However with icing is one of the best cakes ever!
Looks yummy martin
Hey, I was wondering if I can substitute or just leave out the gelatin? Really hope you reply!
It’s pure Heaven! I loooove the recipe!
Great looking cake and good photo, glad you enjoyed it Cristi
Will the recipe above make a full size sheet vake???? Or would I have to double the recipe?? Thanks!!
Hi could you give measurements for a 12″ tin I can not find a good sponge cake receipe any other ones I have tried always seem really greasy ,and would this cake hold under fondant I will be forever greatful for a response .
Karen x
I made this sponge cake and it turned out beautiful!! It was fluffy and moist. But as soon as I took it out of the oven it shrunk and shrivelled. Do you have any idea why this would have happened? I want it to look as good as it tastes.
Hello Ann, Pls is there any other ingredient I can use to replace the tartar because it’s really difficult to find here. Plssss reply, thank you!
I wouldn’t think sponge cake could hold up under fondant – can this one? It’s hard to find really good recipes. Taste really matters to me.
By the way you are very talented and generous in your sharing. You are thorough and concise. I could watch your videos all day instead of You tube. They are informative!
Thank you for the person your are.
Hi lynda you can use on a one layer cake but not anything large that is carved or tiered
Many thanks Ann for that recipe, i just want to ask about the oil here, because i always hear that the sponge cake should not have any oil or butter otherwise it will be a normal cake, is that right??
What is the purpose of the gelatin in the cake? I’ve never seen that before in a sponge cake recipe?
hi jono it is acting as an emulsifier and keeping the oil and water from splitting