Sponge Cake

Everybody should have a sponge cake recipe in their repertoire.  This is super easy and deliciously light and airy.  Fill with fresh summer berries and dust with rose petal icing sugar, you will definitely have a cake to brag about.

Tips for making a good sponge

1. Have eggs at room temperature and if possible free range. 
2. Preheat the oven and prepare the cake tins before you start making your sponge. 
3. Beat the eggs until light in colour, creamy and airy in texture and the whisk leaves a trail behind when lifted. 
4. Take care when folding through the remaining ingredients, the idea of a sponge is to keep the air in the mixture.  Gently folding and not over-mixing!
5. When baking in oven try to not open the oven door to often as it will let out precious heat, and could result in a collapsing sponge. 
6. Only check on the sponge when time is up or almost up, as again the unnecessary movement could cause the sponge to collapse.
7. Remove carefully and allow to cool slightly before removing.

For the sponge cake:

3 medium eggs, at room temperature
90g caster sugar
90g plain flour
40g butter, melted

For the sponge cake: preheat the oven to 190`C lightly grease a deep, 20 cm sandwich tin with butter, then line the base with greaseproof paper and grease once more. Add 1 teaspoon of caster sugar and flour and shake them around to lightly coat the inside of the tin. Tap out excess.

Have the eggs at room temperature, or if need be place into a bowl of warm water. Break the eggs into the bowl of the electric mixer, add the sugar and whisk until the mixture is very thick and moussey and leaves a trail behind when drizzled over the surface.

Sift the flour into the bowl and fold very gently through the egg mixture, add the melted butter and continue to fold until just combined. Try to be gently at this stage as you don’t want to remove more air than needed.

Pour into the prepared tin (you can divide the mixture evenly between 2 tins if wanting to sandwich the cake with cream), and bake 20- 25 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Remove from the oven and cool for wire rack and leave to go cold, 5 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely before decorating.