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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Your sponge cake recipe, can you use it for decorated birthday cakes, under fondant, or is it too soft and fluffy.
Hi tracy you could use it for small one layer cakes but not large carved or tiered cakes.
How could I turn this victoria sponge into a coffee cake without ruining it?
Hi Ann! I love this recipe so much! I was wondering if it could be made into cupcakes…
yes you can 😀
Thanks Ann
I love you & Your Family
Thanks
Mohammed Al-Jammal
Thank you I just made it last night and it was amazing loved it this will be my sponge cake from now on thank you
I just have one question please, after I flipped the cakes out of the tins, the cake was sunk in the middle, not flat as the cake tin base. Not the top side, the bottom side. Do you have any idea why did that happen? Thank you
This is by far the BEST vanilla sponge cake recipe I have ever baked, and I bake a lot! Thank you so much! I had some leftover that were enough for 8 cupcakes. I thought I would surprise my girls with the cupcakes when they come bck from school, but I ate them all! lol!! Thanks Ann, love your site, tutorials, and recipes 🙂
I love watching you bake. It’s beautiful. However, I had a question about this sponge cake.
Is it important to put the gelatine and why do you put?
Hi, I was looking for a cake that could potentially win a cake baking competition, this cake looks like a winner and by far the best one I have researched. I have 1 question; why do I not grease the tins but just line it? Does it affect the texture of the cake? 🙂
Hi Ann, just ate this cake and it was truly super spongy and fluffy and yes, YUMMY! To tell you the fact, it was very easy to make and I made it with my 11 month and 3 week old son on my hip who at last made an attempt for batter taste
I like to have chocolate sponge cake. Do I just need to add how much cocoa powder? Is it to the flour ingredient? Appreciate your advise. Thanks.
Just made the cake for a special occasion and am not one bit dissapointed , my mum is usually hard to please when it comes to me making cake but today she smiled and said this is exactly how it should be ; light and fluffy not too sweet , it’s all just right .
Thank you Thank you Thank you for this recipe … God bless you and your beautiful family.
Well done Zaina, sounds like you did a wonderful job of baking it 😀
Hi Ann, can this recipe be used for cup cakes
Hi Andy,
I tried making cup cakes today, and they are delicious. The only problem is that mine deflated after baking… 🙁
I filled them up with strawberry jam.
They were all puffed up when baking.
Also i didn’t put them upside down after baking.
Have a beautiful day!
The third picture is my birthday cake that turned up amazing 😀
yumm looks great
Hi ann
I’m looking for soft light sponge recipe for cupcakes, would you use this same recipe for cupcakes and if so how many will it make?
Many thanks
May
Hi Ann,
I want to try this recipe for my son’s birthday, why don’t you add the vanilla on this recipe? Thanks for the reply…….
hi marina, you can add vanilla
i have a question.why u use cold water????i must water in the frigde for use
Hi Ann, I tried this recipe and it came out really fantastic. Best sponge cake ever, many thanks!
Hi Ann,
It’s me again 🙂
Today it’s my birthday so I made this cake again. I have 3 pans and a device that makes 3 concentric circles. I thought that the cake would look interesting this way :p
What do you think?
Thank you for the recipe again :-*
looks good Cristi happy birthday
Hi, Ann!! I was just wondering… What is the ‘cream of tarter’??lol Am I the only one who don’t know?!??!!^^ Is there any subsitude for the cream of tarter?or.. can I just skip it..? Please answer my questions.. Thank you so much!! By the way,, I LOVE♥♥the cake recipe:D
Hi Ann,
I would thank you
a lot for all your amazing postings and videos. I have a question regarding the sponge cake .. is it suitable for fondant? or it is better to cover it with cream?
Thanks again 🙂
Hi Noha, it is a light cake so more suited to cream, but I have used it for small fondant cakes before