Perfect Sponge Cake Recipe: Light Fluffy Moist and Tall
The perfect sponge cake should be light, fluffy, moist, tall, soft on the edges and of course beautiful. Easy with the right recipe, painfully frustrating with all of the rest. After testing many, many sponge cake recipes my kids got tired of taking sponge cake in their lunch boxes to school. So I gave them a break for a while. When I came back to it I retested the best ones but was still not satisfied, I tried a heap more that instead of using different amounts of the key ingredients used different methods of combining them. Eventually I tweeked a few of the best ones to come up with this light, fluffy and beautifully moist sponge cake recipe. My favorite.
Sponge Cake Recipe Ingredients
2 cups or 320g (11.29 ounces) plain all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups or 327g (11.53 ounces) sugar
1 Tbsp or 3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp or 7.5g (0.26 ounces) gelatin (powdered)
1/2 cup or 125ml vegetable oil such as canola oil
7 egg yolks or 105g (3.7 ounces)
1 cup or 250millilitres (8.45 fluid ounces) cold water
7 egg whites or 252g (8.89 ounces)
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
To decorate:
1 punnet or 250g (8.82 ounces) or approx 1 2/3 cups strawberries,
600millilitres (20.29 fluid ounces) cream (35% fat),
2 Tbsp icing (powdered) sugar,
1 tsp vanilla essence
(recipe source: adapted from this recipe)
Preheat the oven to 320F (160 degrees Celsius) if using a fan forced oven.
Place your flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and gelatin into a bowl and whisk it to incorporate air and get rid of any lumps.
Make a well in the centre of the flour mixture then pour in the oil, egg yolks and water in that order. Set that bowl to one side.
Put your egg whites and cream of tartar into another bowl and whisk on high speed until you get soft peaks.
Mix together the flour mixture for 30 seconds only or until just combined, don’t over-mix this.
Using a spatula fold in your egg whites in three batches.
Line but do not grease two 20cm (7.87 inches) cake tins and spread the mixture evenly between the two.
Bake in a slow oven, 320F (160 degrees Celsius) for 55-60 minutes.
When it is done leave in the tin and cool upside down.
See the video for how to decorate your sponge cake.
or try the ombre or rainbow cake decorating tutorials
by Ann Reardon How To Cook That
© All Rights Reserved Reardon Media PL 2013
My Cookbook
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All recipe quantities in the book are in grams, ounces and cups.
Hi Ann, I am a huge fan of yours. I love the cakes that you make and love it more because you use normal household items that everybody will have lying around the kitchen instead of the fancy ones available in the market. I have one question about this recipe. What is the purpose of adding gelatine here? Hope to hear from you soon. I am trying to do a sponge cake for my cousin’s wedding. I usually dont get the desired outcome from a sponge cake. It almost always sink when I take them out of the oven. And also, can I make this recipe and leave them in the refrigerator without any problems? Will it taste different of shrink? I want to make them a day or two ahead.
I know that agar agar is a substitute for gelatine (made from sea weed) but it have other properties, such as needing a boil to activate, not just simmer, and gels at room temp, doesn’t need cooling; but can be used in equal parts to gelatine.
Would this work for to recipe? Since it’s mixed into the cake mix, I’m not sure.
My mom, who hates cake, looooooves this recipe.
Hi Ann I love this recipe. However when I make this sponge it always shrivels. Can I just check with you… I have a fan forced oven and it says to pre-heat to 130 degrees then to cook in a slow oven of 160 degrees. Should I still be cooking at 130 or the 160. I’m clutching at straws now as I weigh my ingredients and am struggling to work out why my cake shrivels when I take it out of the oven. Thanks
Hi Ann,
Would this cake hold up to freezing? I know gelatin gets a little weird when frozen and was wondering if the texture would be affected. Also, I’m new to your site and I’m already a big fan of what you do. 🙂
i made this cake then froze it and when i ate it after its been defrosted it had the same look texture and taste just make sure after freezing leave it in the fridge for a few hours to defrost before serving
Hello Ann, i want to make this cake in a larger portion – two 14″/4″ cake pans. Kindly send me an adjusted recipe. Thanks!
Hey Ann,
I tried the recipe today and put some light fruits on the top which sunk in beautifully while the cake was baking. It tastes abolutely amazing and will definitely become my go to recipe. Thank you very much 🙂
I love this cake but i have never managed to let it cool upside down as it alway falls out. Any ideas what i might be doing wrong?
This was absolutely delicious! Made it for Easter Sunday dinner with mixed berries, yum!
Hi Sarah, We did too and yes it is yummy!
Hi Ann,
I’m a huge fun of you, I’m trying to make this cake, but I’m not succed to mix the egg white and cream. I followed your video and instruction, put egg white and cream into a bowl and high speed mix, for a really long time, they are still liquid… Please help me
Make sure your whisk and bowl are extremely clean, and if there are ANY egg yolk bits in with the whites that will also contaminate them and may cause them not to whip up. . And try starting your egg whites at a lower speed, then once it starts foaming bring the speed up higher.
Cream or Cream of Tartar?
Asuna, are you adding cream or cream of tartar to the egg whites? MUST use cream of tartar.
Hi Asuna, You don’t mix the cream and egg white for this recipe. Just the egg white and cream of tartar. I am sorry but you will need to start again.
perfect cake.
Thanks Angela.
Dear Ann,
I LOVE How To Cook That, and am a huge fan of this sponge cake. It never fails!!
I just wondered if you could post some cake filling ideas, like custard or moose that we could use to fill these heavenly cakes.
Warmest, Georgia
Thanks Georgia for the suggestion. There are actually quite a few filling options used across Ann’s recipes. This friday’s video would be great for you to check out. It will give you some good ideas to try.
Hi Ann
Can I ask a quick question please when you turn the cakes upside down to cool will the cake not fall out
Thank you
Hi Gulrukh, As long as the tin is not greased the cake will usually stay in. I have made this cake with new non-stick bakeware and it will sometimes slip out. Then I have to cool it in the tin right way up. It doesn’t stay as moist that way though.
The pie looks so good,i want to try it.. but what is the oven temperature?! I can’t find where you mention it
Hi Beeper, the oven temp is given in the recipe on the blog page: Bake in a slow oven, 160C for 55-60 minutes.
how much coca do i have to use when i need a chocolate sponge cake?
Hi Tabea, Ann recommends using a different recipe for a chocolate cake as just adding the cocoa to this type of recipe doesn’t give a very chocolatey cake. Perhaps try this one: https://wellness-wave1.news/public_html/best-chocolate-cake-ever/%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
Dear Ann I am confused because I want to half the recipe but you have used 3 eggs so if I want to half the recipe wat should I do???
Regards
Umaimah
Hi Umaimah, try using 2 smaller eggs or 1 extra large one.
i wanted to half down this recipe but I’m confused about the egg part should I use 4 eggs or 3 eggs?
At work, when this happens in the bakery, we use a scale. And since Ann provides the grams and ounces for most ingredients, I would cut it in half and weigh the amount out.
Hi Nadine, Use 3 extra large eggs or 4 smaller ones.
Can this cake can be covered with fondant?
I think you can, but It would weigh the cake down and it would not be light and moist and fluffy.
Hi Isabel, You can use fondant if it is just a single cake. Uf it has tiers, the weight of the fondant will effect the structure of the cake.
Or could I use agar agar???
Can i make this sponge cake without gelatine????? ….coz I don’t eat it
Hi Misha, The gelatine is being used in this recipe as an emulsifier. It stops the liquid and the fat from separating and therefore gives a softer cake. You can leave it out but the texture will be different. Agar will not work.
Thanks…….will try this soon
Can u suggest anything to make this cake as soft as urs??? Baking soda or somethin ….. Coz I have tried many cakes but none of them were of right texture….
Hi Misha, If you follow this recipe you should get a good result. The gelatine in this recipe helps to creat a beautiful texture.