Basic Sponge Cake

Basic Sponge Cake

All the ingredients should be at room temperature and please use standard measuring cups and teaspoons. Please use same measuring cup to measure flour, sugar and unsalted butter. Ratio is 1: 1: 1, equal amount of flour, powdered sugar and butter. This batter is also useful to make cup cakes, easy fruit cake and various types of fillings.

Ingredients

For the flour:

1/2 cup (100 ml) all purpose flour ( maida ) (please use fresh all purpose flour) Please use Indian standard measuring cup of 100 ml / 4 oz capacity.

½  level teaspoon baking powder

One pinch salt

Other ingredients

1/2 cup unsalted soft butter (cooking butter). Keep aside to cool for half hour. Then it will become soft (weight measurement is 50 g)

1/2 cup (100 ml) sugar, measure sugar and then make a powder (or 3/4^th level powdered sugar in Indian standard measuring cup of 1 cup / 200 ml / 8 oz capacity)

2 eggs  (net weight of 2 eggs are 106 g)

1 teaspoon lemon juice

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Extra 1 teaspoon butter ( to grease baking dish)

Method

Grease baking dish with 1 teaspoon butter and dust with 1 tablespoon flour (sprinkle about 1 tablespoon of flour inside a cake pan and shake to coat all greased surface. Turn pan upside down to tap out the excess flour ).

Sieve thrice flour, baking powder and salt.

Preheat oven (OTG) at 180 *C or 350 *F.

In a big bowl, beat  soft unsalted butter (@ room temperature) until creamy with the help of an electrical beater.

Add powdered sugar and beat until creamy.

Add egg one by one and beat until smooth and creamy / light golden color (use electric beater).

Add sieved flour in batches (2 batches) and gently mix with the help of a thick tablespoon (do not use electric beater at this stage) until well blended / smooth cake mixture.

Add  1 teaspoon vanilla essence and 1 teaspoon lemon juice. Mix well with a thick tablespoon.

Final procedure:

Transfer this cake mixture into a greased baking pan - ring, square or round (or paper lined ). Here I’ve used is 15 cm x 5 cm round pan. Spread evenly with a spatula, and bake at 180 * C or 350 * F for 30 - 35 minutes or till golden brown or till a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean / leaves from the sides of the pan. Keep aside to cool for one hour.

Run a knife round inside of the pan to loosen the cake, and then invert the pan. Once it reaches normal room temperature, cover cake gently with a butter paper / cling film / aluminium foil and store in a refrigerator for minimum 2 hours or overnight. Then it will be very easy to make perfect slices.

Cake cutting tip:

Heat a knife first before cutting a cake for crumble-free slices. To heat the knife, you can run the knife under very hot water (or heat knife directly in a gas flame) then wipe dry with a clean towel.

Here's the recipe link of Eggless Cake (Recipe from Tarla Dalal)