This sponge is not as dense as a butter cake and also not as light as a chiffon cake. I use this for the good balance it has for even the unicorn cake. Here’s the basic recipe.
(Makes an 8 inch Cake)
Dry Ingredients
- 145g top flour
- 100g castor sugar
- 15g corn flour
- 1/4 tsp salt
Wet Ingredients
- 150g unsalted butter
- 65g fresh milk
- 5 eggs separated
- 1 whole egg
Method
- Preheat the oven at 160 degrees and line the base of the bake pan with baking paper and wrap the bottom of the pan with aluminium foils.
- Sift the top flour, corn flour and salt together and set aside.
- Heat the butter in the milk over medium heat till warm, but not boiling.
- Take the melted butter mixture off the heat and add the sifted flour mixture all at once to the butter mixture and stir to combine using a hand whisk.
- Add the egg and the egg yolks and whisk till smooth.
- In another bowl (I used an electric mixer with a balloon whisk attachment), whisk the egg whites (meringue) till foamy and add the castor sugar, a tablespoon at a time, beating till firm peaks.
- Add one third of the meringue to the egg and butter batter and mix using the balloon hand whisk. You don’t have to be too gentle at this point. This step is to make the consistency of the batter more similar to that of the meringue to allow for easier combining.
- Using a spatula, fold the remaining meringue gently into the batter until combined.
- Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan and place the cake pan which is lined with the aluminium foil in a tray of boiling water (au bain marie) and bake in the oven for about 45 minutes.
- You can test the readiness of the cake by inserting a skewer into the middle of the cake and if the skewer comes out clean, the cake is baked.
- Take the cake out off the oven and cool inverted or if you see the cake pulling away from the sides of the cake pan, you can remove from cake pan and cool the cake upright.
This is a versatile sponge that can be used to make layered cakes or strawberry shortcakes.