Sponge Cake I
Difficulty 2/5 Ingredients 10 Steps 11
Sponge cake is the most commonly-recognised variety of baked confectionery in Britain. It has a sweet taste, often flavoured with vanilla, chocolate or other additions. It can be cut and displayed in a very large number of different ways.
Ingredients
Cake
- 2 eggs
- 4 oz self raising flour
- 1 ½ tsp baking powder
- 4 oz superfine sugar
- 4 oz butter or margarine
- 1–2 tbsp vanilla extract (optional)
- Food coloring (optional), as desired
Assembly (optional)
- 2–4 tbsp jam, loosened with palette knife or similar
- Buttercream
- 1 tbsp icing sugar
Steps
Cake
- Preheat oven to 400°F.
- Cream sugar and butter in mixing bowl until thick and creamy. Longer, faster creaming gives a lighter cake.
- Add both eggs. Mix well.
- Sift in all the flour from a height through a fine sieve. Beat with wooden spoon in a circular motion, incorporating as much air as possible.
- Add any food coloring and flavoring. For liquid ingredients, add the same volume of sugar-and-flour mix. For dry ingredients, use equal parts less flour.
- Grease 1–2 cake pan(s) with butter. Springform pan optional.
- Scrape batter into pan(s). If using two pans, divide equally and fill each no more than ¾.
- Bake about 10 minutes before checking. Total time about 15 minutes; check regularly from about 8 minutes.
- Turn cake out onto wire rack. Cool.
Assembly (optional)
- For 2 layers, turn one upside down and spread jam or buttercream on its base. Stick the other cake top-side up on it.
- Dust with icing sugar through a fine sieve.
Notes from the original
- To make a chocolate variation, substitute cocoa powder to taste with an equal volume of the flour. For example, if using 4 tbsp of cocoa powder, omit 4 tbsp of flour.
Source. Adapted from “Cookbook:Sponge Cake I” by Wikibooks contributors, revision of 2025-06-20, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Changes. Steps rewritten into short commands. Introduction shortened. Wiki formatting removed. This adapted recipe is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.