Sponge Cake

I do not know anybody who does not enjoy a slice of warm plain pound cake. The sweet aroma of the  cake baking in the oven takes me back to my childhood when baking at home was done only during summer holidays. My late grandfather was a teacher, he dabbled a bit in drama, cooking and baking. He had collection of typed recipes, essentially recipes from magazines snipped and pasted in a used school register, where he would meticulously write down all the pointers after testing a recipe in his handsome handwriting. I baked my very first cake under his supervision. We made a very basic pound cake, I do not remember how it tasted but I do remember he iced the cake for me and wrote a 'my first cake' on it with thinned fruit jam. Now after baking practically a thousand of cakes I can tell you it was not the best cake I baked but it still holds a special place in my heart.  A few years and a lots of cakes later my search for a light textured vanilla cake continued.

When I was rummaging through cookbooks looking for a light vanilla cake recipe I came across many and I mean MANY pointers on plain cakes. Tips to attain perfect crumb, texture, the tasty matrimony of butter batter and leavened flour. Promises of wonders if an extra yolk is added, lightness if I substitute some flour with corn starch, and quite a few different techniques. I incorporated as many as I could and now I have attained not somebody else's perfect pound cake but using the same ingredients I achieved a cake that satisfied my taste preferences. This cake is baked on many a Sunday morning breakfasts, for holiday brunches or anytime I crave a simple vanilla cake.

Going by technique and texture the cake is called a  'sponge cake'. It begins with beating sugar, flavouring(vanilla, lemon juice) and eggs for 5 full minutes till a ribbon like consistency is achieved i.e when you lift the beaters above the mixing bowl the batter runs down leaving a trail on the batter and disappears into the batter in a few seconds. After the right consistency is achieved the flour is then added with a gentle hand and mixed into the batter. While mixing continue scraping the bottom and sides of the mixing bowl till there are no traces of flour left. Add melted butter by gently folding the mixture over itself, taking care not to over work the batter. Bake in a preheated oven and treat yourself with a light as air, fluffy vanilla cake. An extra point is earned as no baking powder is called for in the recipe, thousands of air bubbles created by foaming eggs and sugar will help create the 'fluff' or leavened structure. The butter can also be significantly reduced to almost zero which will still yield you a cake called a (Genoise) cake but all the richness and flavour from butter will be deeply missed. However a Genoise cake is perfect if you are serving the cake after icing or splashing some soaking sugar syrup


Sponge cake
Adapted from Ratios by Michael Ruhlman

2 eggs
120 grams granulated sugar
A big pinch of salt (omit if using salted butter)
1 tablespoon lemon juice (optional)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract or a few drops of essence
120 grams all purpose flour (maida)
120 grams butter, melted and cooled

• Preheat oven to 180 degrees C or 375 degrees F
• Line a 6 inch cake pan with parchment paper or brush the pan with butter and dust some flour over the butter tap out the excess flour
• Put the butter in a small steel bowl, place it on heat (stove top) till half of the butter melts. Remove from stove top and allow the resident heat of the bowl to melt the remaining butter
• Sift the flour over a paper and leave aside to be used later. alternately a whisk can also be used to aerate the flour running it a few times through the flour 
• In a large bowl preferably stainless steel, break the eggs into it. whip the eggs till a little foamy about half a minute using handheld electric beater or a stand mixer 
• Tip in sugar, lemon juice, vanilla extract/essence, beat on low speed for about a few seconds and then proceed to increase the speed from medium low to high.
• Stop in between to scrape the mixing bowl to make sure there is no sugar settled at the bottom of the bowl
• Beat the mixture for a full 5 minutes or more. The batter must more than double in volume , the batter will drop like a ribbon and disappears into the batter
• Mix the flour into the egg and sugar batter gently using a spatula/wooden spoon or electric beaters/stand mixer at lowest setting possible till no flour streaks are visible
• Add the melted butter at once,  stir it into the batter using a spatula or wooden spoon, this must be done with a gentle hand to avoid breaking the bubbles that were created during the foaming process. 
• Pour the batter into the prepared pan
• Bake till done for about 25 to 30 mins or when a toothpick/knife inserted in the middle of the cake comes out without any wet lumps of batter.