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. Rating: 5

    can i use this cake for tres leches?

  2. Rating: 5

    My son loves strawberries, so I made this for his birthday cake. It was a huge hit!

  3. Rating: 5

    This cake recipe is definitely the best cake I have ever had! I was a bit nervous trying it because I’ve never used egg whites like the recipe calls for but it turned out great! Even for a beginner like me! I won’t ever doubt the amazing taste and look of Ann’s recipes again! Will definitely be looking into ordering the cook book 😋

  4. Rating: 5

    i love your videos on youtube, but sence im on youtube kids, i cant comment or like, but i did subscribe! 🙂
    i really love that iland cake you made, it looks so cool! also, i really do like this sponge cake. i made it and my family loved it! just thought i should tell you real quick that the email i gave you is not going to work, so sorry. its my private email, so only some people can email me. i love your videos, and my favorite ones are the debunking ones, there very fun to watch. 🙂

  5. Rating: 5

    I made this recipe today and my layers have never looked so good! For one layer I added some cocao powder because one four year old wanted chocolate and the other wanted coconut – he’s getting vanilla. Sorry buddy! Only one tiny mishap, I put the cream of tartar in the dry ingredients by mistake OOPS. Well it probably won’t affect the taste, I hope! I did put it into the meringue as well. That’s what happens when you have 3 kids under 4, two dogs and construction going on in the kitchen at the same time! Anyway, thanks for the recipe! We will have for dessert tonight with whipped cream and canned peaches! (fresh fruit is too expensive 😩) thanks for the recipe!

  6. Rating: 5

    The best Victoria sponge cake recipe ever! I baked it for my husband’s birthday and the whole family loved it. Didn’t use gelatin but still turned out great fluffy, and holding its shape. It has not collapsed nor crumbled.

  7. Hi Ann! Can I substitue agar powder for gelatin in this recipe if I’m vegetarian? Thanks!!

    • I usually skip it and the cakes come out beautifully regardless. Probably the best vanilla cake recipe out there!

  8. Rating: 5

    I have never baked cake before .. not even a mix.

    I wanted to do something special for my GF’s birthday so I tried to make this recipe.

    It turned out to be really easy.

    It tasted as good as it looked.

    Thank you very much Ann

  9. Rating: 5

    Can this be used to make cupcakes ?

  10. Rating: 4.5

    Hey Ann! I love your videos! I wanted to know if I can add some spices such as cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, etc. I am planning to make a fall-themed birthday cake for myself, and I really want to know. Your recipe seems to be just the right sweetness compared to other recipes. I hope you can reply soon!

    All the best,

    Lidia

  11. Rating: 5

    This recipe is delicious and I love your YouTube channel( btw I had to use kiwi because we don’t have strawberries in the summer)

  12. Rating: 5

    When hubby asked for a Victoria sponge for Fathers’ day, I freaked! I have never been able to master it. Then I remembered your website and hey presto your recipe saved the day! Beautiful!

  13. Rating: 5

    TabHi AnnAnn
    This is absolutely the most excellent cake I ever made. Well done.

  14. Rating: 5

    Hi Ann. I recently found this recipe and am yet to make it, but I am not able to get gelatin or agar-agar. Is there a reasonable substitute you could recommend that I use. Thanks, a bunch!

  15. Rating: 5

    Hi, Ann
    I was going to make this, as your recipes are amazing, but I read the ingredients and it has gelatine in it. As someone who can’t have gelatine, I was wondering if you could make a vegetarian recipe, or if I could just take the gelatine out. I understand that it helps make the cake better, but cakes are usually vegetarian, so if you could reply, that would be amazing.
    (I’m just going to put a 5 star rating, because I know it would taste amazing.)

    • I’ve made this with Agartine as a substitute to Gelatine and there was no difference! 🙂

  16. Rating: 5

    This is a beautiful chiffon with a wonderfully light texture that pairs perfectly with fruit mousses. It’s still moist and tender while being airy and not overly rich. The gelatin really works! I did use part of the sugar to stabilize the egg whites, and it made folding without deflating the batter a little easier. Scrumptious with mango Bavarian cream and tart mango glaze 🙂
    Really appreciate the gram measurements, as always.

  17. Rating: 5

    Hi Ann amd Team,

    I absolutely adore the videos! I am going to make this as the base for a fruit layer cake (3 pans and 2 layers of fruit) but I was hoping to add a fairly strong vanilla flavour. Would I add 1 tsp in with the water, or maybe substitute 1 tsp of vanilla for the water? Advice would be much appreciated!

  18. Rating: 3

    I really want to put fondant on this cake,Ann do you have any other vanilla recipe

  19. Rating: 4.5

    Thank you for this amazing recipe and for making it awesome with all the testing you had to do to get it to this point for us to enjoy. I made it for my twin girls bday cake and now its requested by all friends all the time. Thank you for the tips and steps, you make us look awesome, but it is very encouraging to bake a good product, it make you want to try and not be fearful.
    Ruth

  20. Rating: 5

    The tastiest and fluffiest victoria sponge I have ever tasted. Amazing recipe!

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