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 there, I’m planning to make this cake for my son’s birthday party but a couple of children are vegetarian and can’t have gelatine. Is there a substitute? Is it possible to leave it out? Many thanks.
Hi Wendy, You can use Halal gelatine which is a vegetarian product. The cake works much better with it but you can leave it out if preferred. I find the cake is more crumbly if you dont use it.
Hi Ann, if I have the receipe:
1) Do I still stick to the 20cm bake tin?
2) Do I need to reduce the bake time?
Appreciate your help and response 🙂
Cheers, Yvonne
sorry typo- what i wanted to say was what if I half the recipe,
1) do i still use the 20cm bake tin?
2) do i need to reduce the bake time?
Hi Yvonne, This cake is baked in 2 tins, so for half the recipe you could just use one.
Can you use this to make swiss roll?
Hi Angela, Try this recipe for a cake more suited to rolling: https://wellness-wave1.news/public_html/patterned-roll-cake-recipe/%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
How long will this cake keep for? I was hoping to bake Thursday to decorate Friday and serve Sunday?
you should freeze the cake and decorate it sunday morning since cream doesn’t keep well
Hi Trudy, cakes are always best fresh. Baking a sponge the day prior and decorating on the day is fine. If you want to bake prior, you would need a simple syrup to help keep it moist. 4 days is probably a stretch and if you are decorating with fresh cream and fruit, that would need to be done on the day of serving.
Hi again Ann! ☺ is there a chocolate version of this? Thanks in advance ☺
Hi Jackie, this is Ann’s preferred chcolate cake: https://wellness-wave1.news/public_html/chocolate-cake-recipe/%3C/a%3E . It is moist and beautifully chcolatey in flavor.
can you leave the gelatin out?
So, in the ingredients is sugar, but I can’t find when you add it^^’
You add it with the sugar; it’s in the second step. 🙂
flour*
Hi! I’ve made 2 batches of this yesterday. I wasn’t able to see the texture until today when i frosted it with buttercream. It really is moist but mine turned out too moist I think like a bit on the wet side. Is it okay to bake this a longer time? Will it not overbake? I already baked it for 80 minutes and was still a bit too moist for me. We love the taste and texture though, if only not for the damp sponge outcome. Also, I can’t turn it upside down because it drops out right away. Is it okay to rest and cool them the normal way?
I personally would reduce some of the oil as fat is what mostly contributes to the moistness of the final product. But don’t reduce it too much, otherwise your yolk batter will be too thick and difficult to fold the egg whites into.
Hi Jackie, it sounds like something went wrong as it should not have needed to cook so long and shouldn’t be as moist as you describe. I prop my up turned tins on upside down glasses to prevent the cakes dropping out of the trays.
Hi again Ann =) I gave this recipe another shot for an emergency situation yesterday (a big birthday event happening within 7 hours!) I had less than 7 hours to come up with a real good cupcake recipe and I used this and added lime oil. I changed my oven setting where the top and bottom rods were heated (I think that’s where I went wrong last time), cut the baking time in half, cooled and topped with whipped cream, and the guests were satisfied! OMG this recipe just saved me from utter embarrassment to at least 200 guests. Thank you! (teary-eyed) =)
Great work Jackie, supper impressive. Love the lime oil idea. How did that impact the flavour?
Thanks! The flavor was perfect! Lime oil is much better than lime or lemon extracts or flavorings as you only need 2 drops of oil and it already has a rich flavor, also cuts down the eggy-ness of it as some people find in sponge cakes, but my friends said it was really good ^_^ texture was perfect. This one’s a keeper, thanks again! Looking forward to trying out your other recipes!
What if I don’t have cream of tartar in my country (Poland) or I have it but don’t know what it is? I can’t find any translation that will tell me what it is 🙁 can I make cake without it?
You can leave it out or substitute it with equal amounts of lemon juice or white vinegar.
Thank you.so much!
Hi Foxy, In Poland it is referred to as Tartaric Acid. It is “winian potasu” or “Kamień winny”, but apparently you get it in pharmacies rather than supermarkets. While it doesn’t work as well, you can replace it with a tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar but be aware that the flavour will impact the taste of the cake. You can leave it our but the texture of the cake wont be as stable.
Thanks Ann, I made Laminations with this recipe the other day and they were so light and fluffy!!
The look yummy Bec.
Is it possible to make chocolate sponge cake with swiss miss hot cocoa mix?
Hi Amy, we don’t have that product here, so unfortunately I can’t advise you.
Hi Ann will this cake is ok under fondant and tiered cake
Hi Mariam, You would need supports.
Hi, I tried to make this but when I did my cream of tartar and egg whites and mixed it, it is a light frothy mixture, I dont know what I did wrong, got any ideas?
Hi Emma, If you beat the egg whites and they did not become ‘stiff’, it may be because you got some egg yolk mixed in. This can also happen if you used pasteurized egg whites.
if egg yolk mixed inside,how would it affect the cake?
Hi Xinjie, the eggwhites are mixed separately to make the batter very light and fluffy. You want to keep as much air in the mix as possible. Mixing yolk in with the whites in the early stage means they won’t whip as well. The cake can therefore be a lot flatter and more dense
Hi, I made this sponge cake and it came out really good. Thank you so much for sharing this recipe! I have a question though.
I was wondering if I were to make a matcha green tea sponge cake using this recipe, how much flour should be taken out and be replaced with matcha green tea powder? Thank you.
Hi May, You would need to experiemtn with this . Usually you would use just a couple of tablespoons of matcha powder for a delicate colour. So I would make the recipe as is and just reduce the flour by by the same amount.
Hello,
I am a little confused as to the correct temperature to cook the cake. In the video it is said to be a slow oven (which is a lowish temperate) but in the recipe it says 160C if using a fan-forced oven. This would equate to 180 cooking temperature, which is not slow but moderate.
I have never before cooked a sponge for an hour. Usually needs a good heat to rise and also cooks quickly.
Please advise as i would love to make it but the amount of eggs is substantial and would be a total waste if the cake failed.
Thank you so much. And I love your blog,
Angela from Brisbane.
Hi Angela, I make this recipe all the time and it works a treat. Use a slow oven is 160C – you don’t need to adjust for fan forced oven. The vast majority of ovens are fan forced now. You will probably know if your oven is true to temperature if it runs a little hot or cool. Mine runs a little hot, so I adjust the temp a little or reduce the cooking time to get the best results. The first time I cooked this sponge I had good results. Now I get great results as I have got used to it. I think the hardest part of the recipe is turning the tin upside down to cool. It is a generous recipe that makes 2 cakes. If you would like to test it out, then roughly halve the recipe and test.
Heey Admin HowtoCookThat,
So just to confirm, are you to supposed to bake it at 160C fan force? My oven has both fan-force and convection options.
Yes
Hi Ann,
Question, I made this cake as a tester first time and it turned out perfectly moist etc. First time I didn’t get any cream of tartar and I was a third of the eggs short. Then when I made the actual cake using the exact recipe plus some food dye, it wasn’t quite the same. Seemed to taste slight differently and also not quite as moist.
I’ve been searching the web but find out what I did differently as information seems to indicate that the food dye shouldn’t make any difference. Do you have any suggestions (I know this is a difficult question to ask!) As I would love to have an idea about what changed.
Thanks for any info ?. Love the site and recipes!
Hi Jamie, food coloring can impact the finished cake. It would be interesting to know what kind of coloring you used. Ann usually recommends using a gel color when you are trying to use beaten egg whites for lightness.
Thank You for clearing my doubts and helping me out to bake this cake!! Thanks a lot!
Hey Ann, is there any way to make this cake without an oven?
Hi Skylar, You need an oven.
Thank you so much for this amazing recipe! I made my daughters first birthday cake and OT was perfect (slight hiccups with cake falling when upside down oops!) but covered with butter cream (ombre) and it was amazing !
Thanks Blaise. Well done.
Ann, this recipe is amazing. i have had so many compliments each and every time i’ve made this.
Could you please post a chocolate variant.
Thanks.
Hi JC, This is Ann’s preferred chocolate cake recipe: https://wellness-wave1.news/public_html/chocolate-cake-recipe/%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
I would like to bake this whole cake in an oblong tin so it can be cut in squares can you tell me the size tin i would need to use and also how long it would take to bake ?