Sponge cake is one of the staple cakes for pastries. It’s airy, spongy, and deliciously made out of simple ingredients. It’s also a very important cake for Japanese who love strawberry shortcake which is made out of sponge cake. Once you’ve mastered this sponge cake recipe, you can make multiple pastries.
What is Sponge Cake?
Sponge cake, aka pate a genoise in French, is a light aerated cake made with eggs, flour, and sugar. Pâte à génoise is leavened by the whipped eggs, rather than with baking soda or baking powder. Sponge cakes originated during the Renaissance time, most likely in Spain. A genoise is normally added to melted butter to make the cake moister.
What Can You Make with Sponge Cake?
Sponge cake is a very useful cake. You can make a strawberry shortcake, birthday cake, or bottoms of many types of cakes. Cake pops are also made with a sponge cake.
Ingredients for Sponge Cake
- Egg… whole eggs, as fresh as possible. Some recipe use whipped egg yolk and white separately
- Sugar…very important ingredients for sponge cake. Granulated sugar is the best. You can substitute with light brown sugar or coconut sugar but the cake color will be slightly brown
- Flour… pastry flour or cake flour is ideal for sponge cake. Less protein content is the best. Rice flour can be used for this cake
- Butter… Unsalted butter. Add as melted and temperature should be 160-175℉ (70- 80℃)
Other Ingredients
- Heavy Cream or Milk… can be used with butter or a substitute. Provide moist and rich flavor in the cake
- Mizuame… a Japanese sweetner, keeps cake moist. Trimolin or invert sugar can be a substitute
- Cocoa powder,instant coffee, almond flour…. can be used to make different flavored sponge cakes. Cocoa powder and almond powder contain oil, so be more careful when you mix into the whipped egg mixture
Pro Tips and Common Mistake
In most cases of fail sponge cake is either, not enough to whip of the egg mixture. Or not mixed enough with egg mixture and flour.
-Temperature of egg and sugar mixture
Eggs can be formed at cold temperatures however, it takes a long time. When the egg and sugar mixture is around 95℉/35℃ it forms really well. I also adjust the temperature depends on the coldness of the room. If the room is really cold, I bring the mixture temperature slightly higher like 100℉/38℃. However, the ideal temperature of the egg mixture is around 75℉/24℃ to 80℉/27℃ when you adding flour.
-Do not forget to adjust the texture of the foam
Once your egg mixture is whipped enough you have to slow down the speed of the mixer. This will allow transferring the big bubbles into the small bubbles. More small bubbles in your foam provide a smooth texture to your cake. Also, containing small bubbles in the foam is more stable when you add the flour.
-Mix well with flour and whipped egg mixture
The flour has the character of coating the bubble to prevent them from deflating. Therefore, when mixing the flour, it is important to mix the flour well throughout the mixture and coat the bubbles, while being careful not to crush the bubbles.
-After add butter, do not over mix
The fat will destroy the bubble effect, so mix as quickly as possible after you add the melted butter. I recommend takings a small portion of whipped egg mixture into the melted butter first, then adding them back to the remaining mixture.
-Be careful when reduce the sugar amount
Do not reduce the sugar amount: Sugar creates sweetness and a moist and soft texture. So, if the amount of sugar is reduced, the water in the egg will not be absorbed sufficiently and the bubbles will not be stable and will be fragile. That might cause the cake to not swell enough and get a hard texture. Technically, use at least 50% of the amount of sugar scaled to the amount of egg used.
How to Store the Sponge Cake
After the cake is completely cooled down, cover it with plastic wrap in order to not dry it out. If the room temperature is not high, the cake can be kept at room temperature for up to 2 to 3 days. Or kept in the refrigerator for up to 3 to 4 days. You can also freeze it but use it in a month.
Ingredients
- 3 pcs (150g) of whole egg
- ½ cup (90g) of sugar
- ¾ cup (90g) of pastry flour or cake flour
- 2 ⅛ tablespoon (30g) of unsalted butter
Instructions
- Line a 6-inch cake pan with parchment paper and set it aside. Preheat 325〜340°F (160~170℃). Sift the flour.
- Use a bowl, fill with hot water to melt butter, or microwave butter is completely melted.
- In a separate bowl, put in egg and sugar. Using a hand mixer or stand mixture, beat immediately with a whisk.
- In a big pot or pan, warm up water at about 150°F/ 65°C. Place the egg mixture on top and whisk using an electric mixer at high speed. Remove from heat when it reaches 95-100°F/35-38°C and continue to whisk.
- When the mixture has become soft/white/creamy the batter can make in a figure 8 stroke. [Note: figure 8-style is a technique to test the thickness of the cream] It normally takes around 10 minutes.
- Once the mixture is whipped enough, reduce the speed and whisk slowly for about 2-3 minutes in order to make adjust the size of bubbles in the foam.
- When the whipped batter is done, switch to a rubber spatula. Add flour 2 to 3 times, trying to spread the flour to the surface of the batter. Incorporate the flour with folding motions. Keep repeat the process until all the flour is incorporated well.
- Take out a small amount of batter and add it to the melted butter. Quickly mix it and add them back to the remaining batter. Mix and fold well immediately and quickly.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Drop the cake pan 5 inches high in order to release some big bubbles.
- Bake for 30-35 minutes at 330〜340°F (165~170℃)
- To check if the cake is baked through, press lightly on the top. If the sponge springs back, then it is done.
- Release the cake pan and let it cool on the rack, leaving the parchment paper.
