A Simple Sponge Cake

Wanted to bake something quick for my daughter. So a simple sponge cake it is.

You Need:

• About 200 grams of butter.
• 180 grams of granulated sugar.
• 200 grams of flour…Maida.
• 3 eggs.
• 100 ml of warm milk.
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder.
• 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda.
• 1 teaspoon of Vanilla Essence, optional. I did not use it, as I did not have it.
• Any food coloring, a few drops. Completely optional. Just makes the cake look a little more interesting.

Like most normal people, the butter in your house will be sitting in the fridge. Cold and hard. Take out approximately 200 grams. Chop it using a knife into small pieces. Sprinkle the sugar on it. Leave them some place warm, like a stove top or by the window for sometime. The butter will sweat and start dissolving the sugar.

Meanwhile measure out the flour, baking power and baking soda in different dish.

Using a wooden spatula, start creaming the butter and sugar. There are various theories on how this must be done. Mine is to keep on mixing till you can’t feel the sugar granules against the vessel it is being mixed in. The initial sand paper feeling must become like smooth satin.

Crack in the eggs, one after the other. Mixing them well. Add vanilla essence.

Get the oven on. Keep it at around 180C. This is important. If your oven is not preheated, your cake will collapse.

Mix in the dry ingredients into the butter. Do it in batches. This will prevent making a mess in your kitchen.

The batter will be for lack of a better word, tight. Add in the milk to loosen it.

Separate into two portions. Roughly 70-30. In the lesser portion add in any color of your choice.

Take a cake tin. Butter it. Dust it with some flour. Do not use the fancy silicone cake molds. Do not use the teflon coated tins. Use only aluminium cake tins. The batter needs the friction offered by the aluminum tins to climb up.

You can either aim for a proper mosaic style by adding in the two portions of the batter one by one. Or simply plonk in the white batter. Pour in the colored one in spiraling motion. Use a knife to draw lines thru it. The point is as long as you don’t mix them and only do a bit of slice and dice, you should be fine. In any case, when the cake tastes this good, no one is really going to complain.

Bake for 40 mins, till a toothpick or a thin knife comes out clean.

Let the cake rest for at least 20 mins, before you remove it from the tin.