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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Please help! If I’m baking this recipe as cupcakes how long should I bake for
Hi Jade, Ann hasn’t trialled this, so you will just need to experiment. Let us know how it goes.
Hello Jade 🙂
I made these as cupcakes (it makes about two dozen) and it took about 20-25 minutes to bake. I hope this helps!
Your recipe says, “2 cups 300g (10.58 ounces) plain all-purpose flour”, but actually 10.58 ounces are just about 1.27 cups. So I’m wondering if that’s 2 cups or 1 cup? Can you please answer?
Hi Jenny, We have double checked this. 1 cup of flour is about 150grams. 2 cups is about 300gms. This converts to 10.58oz
Hi Ann,
Thanks for sharing all your wonderful recipes and decorating ideas. My 3.5 year old son and I look forward to Fridays to discover what you’ve created.
My older son turns 7 in June. He’s a big “How To Train Your Dragon” fan. Do you have any ideas for a birthday cake with this theme? Thank you.
Kind regards,
Barbara
Hi Barabara, Here are a few option that you could consider: http://www.howtocookthat.net/public_html/how-to-train-your-dragon-cake/
or http://www.howtocookthat.net/public_html/pet-dragons-castle-cake-tutorial/ And don’t forget to check out the surprise cakes App: http://www.howtocookthat.net/public_html/surprisecakes/
I tried making this twice but I still can’t get it. When I mixed the egg white and cream of tartar, the result is watery far different from the video. Sorry, I’m still a newbie ^.^ ..Really need help..
Btw, A big fan here. Your blog is like paradise <3
Is your bowls and/ or whisks completely dry from water or fat? That probably the reason why it didn’t fluff up. The bowl and the whisks must be completely clean and dry from water and fat.
Hi Scarlett, It sounds like you are just not letting the egg white mix beat for long enough.
Hi.. Can i slice the cake straight away before putting the frosting or do i have to place the cake in the fridge to harden alil so when i cut it will have less crumbs.. Thanks
Hi, thank you for sharing your recipe, will definitely give it a go. I live in the UK and just starting up a home baking business. Tried loads of recipes and your recipe seem perfect. Thanks again x
Hi Anne, just wondering can it be backed in the one tin instead of using two, and I’m guessing the time may be different ?
Hi Angela, Ann hasn’t trialled cooking it in a larger tin so I can’t give you exact times but it would take longer. It would mean you couldn’t cool it upsdie down either as the weight would likely make it fall out. If you try it with the larger tin, let us know how it goes.
Hi Ann,
“2 cups 300g (10.58 ounces) plain all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups 330g (11.64 ounces) sugar”
How come 2 cups = 300g and 1 1/2 cups = 330g? Was there a mistake?? Please help me
Hi Jenny, It is no mistake. Different ingredients have different density. One cup of feathers will weigh less than 1 cup of pebbles. Obviously we are not weighing rocks here but the principle is the same. Hope that helps!
Hi ann,
Could you plz tell me how to replace egg in this recipe. I am a vegetarian and i really want to try the recipe..
Plzz also tell me how to replace eggs in any cake recipe.. I have tried banana but nobody in my house like the taste.
Hi Deepika, You really can’t swap the egg in this recipe as it is essential to the structure and the aerating of the cake.
hi I am in South Africa n I used ur recipe with no problems it was a grt success I will b using it all the time I made cup cakes n also made one choc cake awesome thank u for a very successful recipe x
Thanks for the great feedback Shayne.
Hi Ann 🙂 Can this cake be baked in cupcake tins instead? Or will it dry out too much?
Hi Hannah, This recipe works well in cupcake tins.
Can we replace oil with butter?
Hi Medha, Oil is required for this recipe.
Dear Ann,
Thank you very much for this recipe, I will be using the sponge for a birthday cake 🙂 However, I just have a few questions. Do you use caster or icing sugar in your flour mixture? The recipe does not specify this and I can’t tell which one is being used in the video. Secondly, you make a division between normal and fan ovens when pre-heating it, but do not make such division when saying how long it should be baked for. Does this division still apply (ie the cake being baked for 55-60 mins on 130C in fan oven) or is it 160C for both ovens? I think I know the answer but I wanted to make sure. And last thing, I would like my sponge to be pink so that it matches the rest of the cake. At which stage would you recommend to add the red food colouring? I’ll be using the gel food colouring version. Thank you so much!
Kind Regards,
Kat
Hi Kat, Ann uses caster sugar in this recipe. She recommends adding the gel colouring to the water before you add it to the mix. You can cook the cake at 160C till baked regardless of the type of oven. We would love to see a pic when you are done!
I tried cooling the cake upside down and it fell out of the cake tin and partially went through the cooling rack. If is cooled it the right way up, will it sink?
Hi Linda, If you cool the cake the right way up, it will sink. If the cake is slipping out of the tin when you are cooling it upside down, we wonder if perhaps you greased the tin before baking. This will make it slip out easily. Don’t grease the tin and then it is more likely to stay put.
Hi Ann
I used the sponge cake recipe for a birthday cake. I got so many compliments on how light and fluffy the cake was. Thank you so much for all your easy to follow, delicious recipes!
Thanks for the feedback Leonie.
Hi Ann, I’ll be making a birthday cake with fondant. Will this sponge cake be able to hold the weight?
What should I do if I would like to bake this recipe into a chocolate sponge? Thank you
Hi Flora, Firstly Ann prefers to use a chocolate mud cake recipe as a chocolate sponge just doesn’t taste that good. If it is a small or single layer cake, it should hold the fondant. If it is a large cake or multiple layers, you will find the weight of the fondant becomes a problem. Hope that helps!
do you have any replacment of the gelatin or baking powder
Hello, can you tell me what the actual weights would be for the tablespoon of baking powder and the teaspoon of salt? Tablespoons and teaspoons are different sizes in different countries (at least in the UK versus USA) I believe.
Hi Vickie, a tablespoon is 15ml and teaspoon is 5ml in Australia. Hope that is a help.
Ml. is a liquid measurement though and what we are dealing with here is baking powder and salt. Could you give a weight in grams that would equate to the tablespoon and teaspoon of these? thanks.
Hi! Can I skip adding cream of tartar (I can’t get it in my country) and just whisk egg whites?
Hi Karolina, The cream of tartar, stablizes the egg whites. If you can’t get it then you could replace it with lemon juice. It is not as effective but will help.
Excellent recipe. I doubled it and made a 2 tier 4 layer birthday cake using buttercream frosting. It was delicious!! Rave reviews from birthday party guests!
Great work!
Hi, pls do tell if the gelatine is to be used as powder form or mixed before incoporating into the flour mixture. Thank you
Hi Cake Affairs, You mix it in powdered form.