Rate it 4.5
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
Stores that sell my book listed by country: http://bit.ly/ARcookbookAll recipe quantities in the book are in grams, ounces and cups.
1,190 Comments View Comments
Sarah C.February 21, 2023, 2:46 pmReply
Rating: 5
My son’s 1st attempt at making a cake from scratch instead of from a box. He read the book, picked this recipe, watched the recipe videos and worked it out. It turned out wonderfully.
ClaudiaJuly 25, 2022, 3:15 pmReply
Rating: 5
I made this cake and it was amazing! Moist, light, not too sweet, my family loved it. It wasn’t hard to make either, fun recipe beautiful birthday cake thanks so much!
ClaudiaJuly 25, 2022, 3:18 pmReply
Rating: 5
Forgot to add photo
AnnAugust 3, 2022, 9:41 amReply
Beautiful, you made it perfectly 😀
anonymousMay 8, 2022, 9:00 pmReply
Rating: 5
Hi I’m vegetarian and was wondering if I could make it without gelatine. Is it necessary?
ThankdMancaMay 14, 2022, 10:38 pmReply
Rating: 5
Hi there! Veggie here too! I made this cake with agar agar and it turned out just fine. See photos below. 😉
BarbaraJune 23, 2023, 2:27 amReply
Rating: 5
Might have powdered agar agar…
MancaApril 4, 2022, 4:17 amReply
Rating: 5
Made sponge cake using half of the ingredients. Topping is apricot marmelade first (btw thanks a million for this tip), then sliced canned apricots as not yet the season for fresh, covered with whipped sweet cream with vanilla sugar. On top just cream decorations.
MancaApril 4, 2022, 4:29 amReply
Rating: 5
Forgot to mention I replaced powdered gelatine with agar agar. Used this recipe for flat levels to create Nintendo Switch cake for a friend.
3distendedJanuary 13, 2022, 10:55 amReply
2tireless
EASJanuary 12, 2022, 6:14 amReply
Rating: 3.5
Why is the flour to sugar ratio for the grams recipe so different from the cups recipe
AshJanuary 13, 2022, 7:52 amReply
Rating: 5
Because sugar is heavier than flour.
ADecember 9, 2021, 4:42 amReply
Rating: 5
If I were to want to make this into a chocolate cake, what would you suggest I add and subtract from the recipe?
CaspernicusJanuary 16, 2022, 7:07 amReply
Rating: 5
She has a chocolate cake recipie
Sanele DubeNovember 7, 2021, 3:09 amReply
Rating: 4
enjoy the cake it was surprisingly fluffy and light except for when the toppings and cream on the side of the cake slid off, I did fix this just next time I’ll add a touch more sugar and refrigerate the cream before adding it to the cake, my first ever double cake!
I posted this on my Instagram, thank you so much I hope this helps me with applying for a bakery, may God bless you, Ann.Sara BalchuckOctober 26, 2021, 2:14 amReply
Rating: 5
About how many cupcakes would this recipe make?
Lisa BSeptember 10, 2021, 2:17 amReply
I made this cake recently for my son in laws birthday. He requested it due to the fact he was raised early in his life in England and his family ate this on a regular basis. It turned out beautiful and tasted amazing! I will definitely be making this again. It was easy and simply delicious. Thank you for perfecting the recipe for us!
Anushri DesaiJuly 13, 2021, 5:17 pmReply
Rating: 5
Hi, can I skip gelatin in this recipe? Thanks 😊
Sarah GlapaJuly 5, 2021, 4:13 pmReply
Rating: 5
Hi Ann,
Thankyou so much for all your beautiful recipes and advice on all things baking etc! You explain things simply and in a way this home baker can understand.
One of my favourites is your Sponge Cake recipe and wondered if you can advise how to make it coffee flavoured? I can have an educated guess, of course, but am cautious about changing any aspect of your otherwise ‘no fail’ sponge cake recipe so thought I’d check with you first.Regards,
Sarah💐🎂💖
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