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
© All Rights Reserved Reardon Media PL 2013
My 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.
we respect your email privacy
Hi Ann , I’m going to halve the ingredients but should I be using 3 or 4 eggs ?
Hi Hellodonut, I would use 3 large eggs or 4 small depending on the size of your eggs.
Hi Hellodonut, I would use 3 large eggs or 4 small depending on the size of your eggs.
i want to half down this recipe but I don’t know which one to half down
Hi Nadine, I would halve all the ingredients.
If I use self rising flour will I be able to cut out the baking powder, salt and gluten?
Hi Tinar, Its easier to do it according to the recipe. If you use Self raising flour you would still need to add additional Baking powder. The other ingredients would not alter.
why does the sponge flop after taking out of the oven
Hi Donna, This problem means it isn’t quite cooked enough.
Hi Ann,
Can you explain the science of using Gelatine in this recipe? Is it to help maintain the structure of the sponge?
Love your work
Regards
Dorothy
Ireland
Hi Dorothy, The gelatine is being used in this recipe as an emulsifier. It stops the liquid and the fat from separating and therefore gives a softer cake.
Hi Ann,
Is there a substitute for the gelatine in this recipe? If not, is there another recipe or type of cake I can use for fondant or layered cakes? Usually when i make cakes they crumble!!!!! I LOVE YOUR VIDEOS!!!
-Ali
Hi Ann, I went through all the comments but the weight or size of the eggs that you have used is not mentioned so can you please help. I stay in Dubai so please help. Thanks
OMG The BEST Sponge cake ever!! I have repeatedly made this into cupcakes, but I iced them with whipped chocolate ganache.
Australian TBSP = 20mL
British. TBSP = 15mL
Australian and british tsp = 5mL
Hi Mrs. Reardon
I had a question on your opinion on your frostings. Which one is your favorite? The one that looks the best to me is the White Chocolate Ganache.
Australian eggs. British eggs
Xjumbo 72 to 78g. VL 73+g
Jumbo 67 to 71.9g. L63 to 73g
XL 59 to 66.9g. M 53 to 63g
L 50 to 58.9g. S 53 or less
M 42 to 49.9g. The difference might be the
Cause of some of the problems others have experienced. Hope this helps.
Hello ANN, I’ve waded through all 11 sets of posts and through the recipe sereral times and can’t see a size or weight for the eggs.
Nice to see a recipe which doesn’t just give cup measures but includes metric and imperial weights as well. Egg weights after removing the shell would be best as different countries use different size to weight ratios. Thank you.
What is the purpose of Cream of tartar? it is possible if i don’t use it? please answer my question…
I was wondering which flour to use (I’m from the UK), all purpose = plain flour or self raising? If it is plain flour is there no baking powder in the recipe?
Thanks.
I just made it and it tasted delicious, I baked it along a baking sheet and the edges hardened like cookies cause it was a thin layer and the center was cake like. My new favorite recipe
Mum said ts the best iv eva baked
Love this recipe but most of the time when I make it, it shrinks around the top… What could I be doing wrong.. Perhaps under cooked? Also, could this recipes be altered to make it a chocolate sponge? TIA
Lovely sponge. great for carving. just one problem! it fell out of the cake tin and broke. Luckily i was doing a sculptured cake so butter cream saved the day. This is my new favorite cake recipe
Wow, you have amazing patience Ann! People keep asking the same questions!!!! Your cakes look amazing! I’m excited to try this recipe. I can see a couple of people asked about freezing this cake and I wonder if anyone has tried and what the results were? Thanks for your recipes and tips. And hellllloooooo people, read the comments (at least a few pages!!) before asking the same question as 15 ppl before you!!!!!!
Hi, I would like to make this cake but I have a problem with the cream of tartar because I didn’t find it in all the shops I went…
Do you know a substitute?
1tsp cream of tartar = 2 tsp white wine vinegar or lemon juice I believe
Hi Ann, I was wondering, if you wanted to half this recipe, would you use 3 or 4 eggs? Also, is this cake good for making a checkerboard cake (cutting and adding) Thank you!
-Sophia