Sponge Cake (Mis)adventures

A couple of weeks ago I had a complete sponge fail from a recipe that I had followed perfectly. (Well, at least I believe that I did). The sponge cake came out chewy, and as you can imagine, chewy sponge cake is not particularly pleasant. Not quite sure how I managed that, but at this stage I’m still blaming the recipe! A proper high tea is incomplete without a good sponge so I was slightly distressed over my inability to make one. My Nana, having tried some of this sponge offered to send down my other Nana’s (now deceased) recipe for never fail sponge. My Mum often talks about how my other Nana was one of the best sponge makers she knows, so I was ready to test my skills to discover if it really was a recipe fail or if I just can’t make a good sponge…

Sponge cake - looks can be deceiving...

I was given the opportunity to make a sponge cake for a friend’s birthday, and jumped at the opportunity to try my new recipe. I pulled out the Kenwood Mixer and measured everything exactly according to my Nana’s recipe. I even sifted the dry ingredients 3 times! Everything seemed absolutely perfect, and I poured the mixture into the two separate 8-inch cake tins and then made sure I was close by to watch them bake. On pulling the sponges out of the oven, everything appeared to be fine and the sponge had risen beautifully.

I put cream and homemade strawberry jam in the middle of the sponge and sprinkled icing sugar on the top. By all appearances it seemed that this would be my sponge success story. I nervously watched as the sponge cake was cut and served, observing that it was sponge-like in appearance (always a good thing!).

Now I don’t like making cakes for this very reason – you can’t really sample a slice before you take it out with you. So you just have to hope that you got it right. Well, I wouldn’t call this sponge cake a complete fail, but I was a little disappointed in the texture. It seemed a little dry to me, and I can honestly see why people usually just buy sponge cake. But that said, it had a good sponge cake flavour and my friend was very appreciative of my efforts. I will not let this experience deter me, practice makes perfect as they say. Next time I will adjust the cooking time to see if this makes a difference.

And if you have any sponge cake making advice please send it my way!