A single
serving of light, buttery loveliness. A
simple yet elusive delight.
Sponge
cakes were first detailed as a recipe in the 1615
book of The English Huswife, Containing the Inward and Outward Virtues Which
Ought to Be in a Complete Woman by English poet and author Gervase Markham. Things have moved on a little since then!
Perhaps its
best known incarnation is the Victoria Sponge named after Queen Victoria who
was rather partial to a slice.
It’s
surprisingly tricky to get a sponge right.
Internet recipes and cookbooks reveal a plethora of differing ingredients,
quantities and advice. Quite confusing
for the home chef eager to learn.
I believe
that if you can get a sponge right it helps with so many other cake recipes as
there are some key techniques which are vital to a light tasty result.
The first
thing I have learned is that baking really is a science. Quality and quantity combined with the right
techniques are essential. You need to do
your research here. There are only four
base ingredients to a sponge; butter, sugar, eggs and flour.
The essence
of a good sponge lies in its light, airy quality. How does that happen?
A sponge’s
airy texture comes from air being beaten into the butter at the creaming stage
which forms tiny little bubbles circled by the fat in the
butter. If we cooked this mixture it
would collapse because fat melts in heat.
However, egg
is then added to the mix which forms a rigid structure around the bubbles when
cooked and therefore the sponge keeps its shape.
Finally,
the flour forms a network around the bubbles to give the cake structure. Also it contains a raising agent called
baking powder (not baking soda – they are different). For this recipe I’m using self raising flour
but you can use plain flour with baking powder mixed through it.
Armed with
this information I went off to find an expert to confirm what I believed about
baking sponges.
Rachel
Allen has been writing and broadcasting about food for over a decade. She has written several bestselling books on
baking and is an established cookery teacher.
To say the least, she knows a thing or two about baking sponges. She is also incredibly giving with her time
and agreed to meet me to talk about everything ‘sponge’!
Firstly we
discussed using quality ingredients. If
you have only four ingredients you must use good quality ones to get good
results. So use decent caster sugar, self
raising flour, free range eggs with really yellow yolks and finally good
quality unsalted butter. Do not use
margarine!
N.B. All
these ingredients should be at room temperature before you start.
Weigh your
eggs in their shells and then weigh equal quantities of your butter, flour and
sugar. In many recipes you will see the
number of eggs given to a quantity of the other ingredients. Think about this for a moment, if you are
using free range, organic eggs they may well come in very different sizes. Don’t confuse them with the battery farmed
‘single size’ supermarket ones. If we
understand that baking is a science and ratios of ingredients are important
then it makes sense to get equal weights.
Secondly,
regarding technique, you really need to cream your butter and sugar well to
incorporate all those air bubbles. This
takes time so stick with it. Use a large
bowl to really get the butter beaten well.
The butter / sugar mix will go a much paler colour as the bubbles build
up.
Have your eggs beaten together in a bowl separately before adding to
your mixture. This will break the eggs
up and help them incorporate into the butter.
At the next
stage make sure you ‘fold’ the sieved flour into the mixture and don’t beat any
more. We need to keep the bubbles in
there that we have taken so much effort to create. Tip the bowl up at one side and slide the
spoon under the mix and fold it over to mix the flour through. I find it best to use a big metal spoon at
this stage as it has a wider surface area and sharper edge than a wooden one
which helps with the folding motion.
This is another reason why a big bowl is important as you can get a
bigger ‘folding’ motion going.
How do you
know if your sponge batter is right?
Lift up a spoonful and it should drop back off the spoon into the bowl
with reasonable ease. If it doesn’t, add
a little milk until it does. Bit by bit
as you don’t want to over do it!
We
discussed ovens. As I have said before,
ovens vary in their temperature and you may need to experiment. Do not be afraid of failure. Rachel
reiterated this and said that practice is crucial. Remember also that the size of your fairy
cakes may vary depending on the size of cases you buy. They are all quite different and the producers
spend more time on making them look pretty than they do stating the size.
The cooking
time is important when it comes to the rise of the sponge. As the egg forms a rigid coating to the
bubbles it must be given time for the proteins to set. Think about how an egg toughens as you fry
it. Therefore, if the oven door is
opened too early, the egg collapses around the bubble and the sponge
deflates.
I asked
Rachel about my belief that we should initially learn how to bake without using
electric beaters or mixers. She agreed
with this saying that we then understand what we are looking for at each stage
a little better. We are in closer
contact with the ingredients and can spot changes during the process better.
Bearing in
mind all of Rachel’s advice let’s make fairycakes!
This recipe should be about right for 12 fairy cakes.
Ingredients
- 3 eggs weighed in their shells
- Equal quantities of caster
sugar, butter and self raising flour.
- A little whole milk
Utensils
- A big mixing bowl
- 12 individual fairy cake cases
- A 12 hole baking tray to snugly
hold the cases.
- A wooden spoon
- A metal spoon
- A skewer
Method
Pre – heat
your oven to 180 °C / Fan 160 °C
Have your
cases in the tray ready to go.
With the wooden spoon, cream the
butter and sugar together in the mixing bowl until pale and fluffy and lots of
air has been incorporated. This could
take up to 10 minutes depending on how well you beat and how much your arm can
take!
Whisk your
eggs in a separate bowl and gradually start to add a little at a time to your
butter / sugar mix. Beat well between
each addition and incorporate all the egg before adding more. If it looks like it has split then you can
add a teaspoon of flour to stabilize it.
Once all
the egg had been added then sieve your flour into the bowl. Sieving gets rid of lumps and incorporates
more air.
Fold in the
flour using the large metal spoon. Check
for dropping consistency. Add milk a
little at a time if the mixture is too thick.
Spoon equal amounts of the mix into each
paper case to just under half full. They
will rise and you want space at the top to pipe icing and decorate your cakes.
Put them
straight into the oven and bake for 15 – 20 minutes depending on your oven or
the size of your cases. Don’t open the
oven for at least 15 minutes or they may collapse, although this is more
important for the larger Victoria
Remove from
the oven and insert a skewer into the cake.
If it comes out clean with no mixture sticking to it then it is
ready.
Put the
cakes onto a cooling rack and leave until completely cool before applying your
topping of choice.
Icing
For the
cakes pictured here I made a simple butter icing using double the quantity of
icing sugar to really good softened French unsalted butter.
200 g Icing
Sugar
100 g
Butter
Simply beat
the butter and the sieved icing sugar together until they form a lovely soft
icing. Put this into a piping bag and away
you go.
I often
make fairy cakes with my four year old daughter at the weekends. I believe it’s important that children know
where their food comes from and they have the ability to cook for
themselves.
Rachel
agreed and went on to talk about the importance of skills like baking being
passed on from one generation to the next. If you
teach someone to cook you are empowering them with an essential life skill.
Thank you Rachel,
that’s something you do really well.
Thanks to
Rachel Allen for all her time and advice and to Amy from borrowedsalt.com for
taking the photos of Rachel and me!
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