Sponge Cake Recipe

icecubequeen

I'm off to the in-laws at the weekend.

Whenever we go over my mother in law bakes a sponge cake for me, OH and the kids. Her cakes are always perfect, as is all her cooking.

This weekend I said it would be nice for me to make a cake and take it with us instead of her always baking for us.

So here comes the problem.........my cake making skills. :eek:

I usually make a sponge cake from a packet mix, have yet to take on OS cake making and when i do make them they never hardly rise and aren't that great to be honest.

I plan on making this cake from scratch so any help, advice or tips would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance
Hels xxxx

welshgirlmel

Hi Hels
To make a cake rise, always use self raising flour and sieve it to help get air into the mixture
Mel

borderlakland

i always add small amount of baking powder to s/r flour make sure the butter/sugar is as creamy as poss and always use the best quality eggs you can get hold of. best cakes i've ever made were when we used to keep our own hens.

Lazy_Runner

Just a suggestion, but do you really want to compete on the sponge cake making front?

Would it be better to make something different?
eg. fruit cake, biscuits, shortbread etc

twink

make some of my hobnobs they are easy to make and i bet she will want the recipe, say you made it up yourself

moanymoany

1 food mixer - the beater type - or a strong wrist.
Either one or two baking tins. If you have only one tin it might be better to make two individual cakes rather than one very thick cake you have to cut.

This is called a pound cake. The ingredients are always in the same proportion.

Get your tin ready, grease it and put greaseproof paper or baking parchment in the bottom.

Set your oven at 180C

1 egg
2 oz SR flour
2 oz butter - value unsalted from Tesco - or margarine
2 oz sugar - granulated or caster

Chocolate cake - remove a tablespoon of flour and add a tablespoon of cocoa.

For 1 tin I use a 2 egg mix.

Here's the easy bit. Make sure the butter has been out of the fridge for a couple of hours and is soft.

Put everything together in a bowl and mix like mad. When it is a nice creamy mixture put it in the tin or tins, smooth the top and put into the oven.

After 15 minutes have a look at it. If it is getting very brown or cooked looking on top, put the oven down to 170c.

After 25 minutes take out and test. Use either a metal knitting needle or a thin bladed knife. Put it into the centre of the cake. If it comes out looking clean the cake is cooked. If it lookes sticky put the cake back for 5/6 minutes and test again.

Put together with butter cream and jam if you like it.

2 oz very soft butter, 4 oz sifted icing sugar. Mix the sugar into the butter a little at a time. add flavour - grated lemon or orange rind, cocoa, coffee if you want.

Either sandwich the two cakes together with the icing and jam or icing, or put the icing on top of a single cake.

To decorate the top of a cake. Get the kids to cut shapes in paper the size of the cake. Lay the paper on top of the cake then put some icing sugar in a seive and gently seive the sugar onto the paper. Remove the paper - there is a lovely pattern.

I used to use a doily, that gives a lacy pattern.;)

COOLTRIKERCHICK

twink wrote: »

make some of my hobnobs they are easy to make and i bet she will want the recipe, say you made it up yourself

good idea make something dif......

but on the sponge front.... my fairy cake/victoria songe mix was allways hit and miss...... some days nice and light then other days sooo heavy... .. but now i use the muffin recipe and method for making my sponges... and touch wood nice ..light and tasty every time......

Muppet81

I recently had a birthday cake to make for a friend and I am also a little lacking in the cake making skills. My sponges always sink.

I decided to use Nigella Lawson's Fairy Cake recipe - made in the food processor so really easy. I used muffin papers instead of the traditional fairy cake/bun papers. My cakes rose in the middle to a point, which I cut off, and this left a gap to the top of the muffin paper.

I made up some glace icing and tinted some a very pale lemon. I ticed all over the top so they were more of a cup cake than a fairy cake. I popped a lemon icing rose (bought at a cake decorating shop) onto each of the lemon iced cakes and just popped a circle of 3cheap icing daisies (bought in Tesco) on the white ones.

I then arranged these in a circle on a nice plate and popped a white holder and candle in the white ones.

I arranged some fresh ivy in the gaps and it looked stunning.

Perhaps you could do something similar - nice easy fairy cakes - ice to turn into cup cakes then decorate in a really pretty way using a simple bought decoration. Could even use something like a fresh viola flower.

Simple but very effective and I think they would go down well.

npsmama

Can anyone give me an easy foolproof sponge cake recipe please?

My sponge cakes never rise enough - it's become a family joke! There's only so many trifles a family can eat.

The worst ones were Delia's recipe.

I have a Kenwood Chef and would love a tried and true recipe that works in there.

Please specify cake tin sizes and oven temperatures as I'm sure they're the root of the problem.

Thank you

vivaladiva

Have you tried 8 of everything plus 3 eggs?
That's 8oz each of SR Flour, Sugar and Marg/Butter. (I add 2 tsp baking powder too.) Mix it all up and put it in a 7" x 10" tin and bake for about 25mins at 170 degrees (Fan oven.)
The only time this has failed was when I lined the tin with baking parchment - I have no idea why.