By Helen Tzouganatos, Hungry and Fussy
[post_ads]This month marks the one year anniversary of my food blog. What started as a fun side hobby between school drop off and pick up times quickly developed into a full blown passion for food styling and photography. What a delicious and exciting journey the past 12 months have been.
To celebrate my blog’s first birthday I decided to go back to basics and bake the quintessential celebration cake – a classic gluten free Victorian Sponge Cake with Jam & Cream. What’s not to love about soft as a cloud spongey layers sandwiched together with lashings of whipped cream and homemade jam?
The key to a great sponge cake is air, lots and lots of it. You need to work quickly and gently to ensure you incorporate as much air as possible in each stage of the baking process. Sponge is quite a simple cake to master and perfect for those new to baking as there are only a few pantry staple ingredients and simple rules to follow.
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My three essential tips are-
- Ensure your eggs are at room temperature because cold eggs will not incorporate as much air as room temperature eggs.
- Triple sift your flour to guarantee a light and fluffy texture. Don’t skip this step it is critical.
- Very gently fold the flour through the batter one third at a time using a thin rubber spatula to retain air and distribute the flour evenly.
This gluten free recipe will quickly become your new favourite basic birthday sponge cake recipe. All you need to do now is put the kettle on and bookmark under ‘tried and tested family classic’. Enjoy!
Serves: 10 slices
Ingredients
- 6 medium eggs
- ¾ cup caster sugar
- 1 tbs vanilla extract
- ¾ cup potato starch
- ½ cup cornflour
- 60g unsalted melted butter
- Homemade Jam
- Whipped Cream
- Icing sugar to dust
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Instructions
Conventional Method
- Preheat oven to 180c and grease 2 x 20cm square or round cake tins. Line the bases with baking paper.
- Beat eggs, sugar and vanilla extract in electric mixer for 8 minutes until thick and pale.
- Whilst the egg mixture is beating triple sift potato starch and corn flour together in a separate bowl.
- Sift the flour over the egg mixture one third at a time and gently fold through the batter using a thin rubber spatula.
- Fold through the melted butter.
- Pour half the mixture into each baking tin and bake for 15-20 min or until cakes are springy to touch.
- Transfer to wire racks and spread jam over one sponge cake whilst still warm to allow jam to soak into some of the sponge. When cakes are completely cool add layer of cream and sandwich together. Dust with icing sugar to serve.
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Thermomix Method
- Preheat oven to 180c and grease 2 x 20cm square or round cake tins. Line the bases with baking paper.
- Combine potato starch and cornflour in Thermomix bowl and mix 10 sec/speed 5. Set aside and clean and dry Thermomix bowl.
- Insert butterfly into mixing bowl and beat eggs, sugar and vanilla extract 5 min/speed 5 with MC removed.
- Transfer mixture to a bowl and very gently manually fold the flour through the egg mixture one third at a time with a thin rubber spatula (as per conventional method) to retain as much air as possible. I find the manual method works best here to retain maximum air and a fluffy batter.
- Once flour has fully incorporated into batter add melted butter.
- Pour half the mixture into each baking tin and bake for 15-20 min or until cakes are springy to touch.
- Transfer to wire racks and spread jam over one sponge cake whilst still warm to allow jam to soak into some of the sponge. When cakes are completely cool add layer of cream and sandwich together. Dust with icing sugar to serve.
