Sponge cake is a very well-known and popular batter for pastries and desserts. The best-known example is certainly the Swiss roll. This batter is also very suitable for delicate cakes, as the airy sponge cake goes well with quark and creams. If you would like to bake a sponge cake batter, you should read through and take to heart our collected tips. Sponge cake has to be handled with care right from the preparation stage. With this baked good, all preparation steps should be strictly followed. If some ingredients are left out or replaced with others, it can certainly happen that the sponge cake does not turn out the way you would have liked. I have baked sponge cake several times and it has always worked very well.
How do I prepare a sponge cake?
Ingredients at room temperature
First and foremost, it is important to prepare the ingredients carefully. Make sure that everything is at room temperature – this applies not only to the ingredients, but also to the utensils.
Separate the eggs
First and most important step: separate the eggs carefully. Make sure that the egg white without any yolk is separated. If even a tiny bit of yolk gets into the egg white, it can no longer be beaten until stiff. After separating, the egg white can now be beaten until stiff with a hand mixer and a little sugar. It is important here to beat the egg white until very stiff. Gradually sprinkle in the sugar and keep beating vigorously until firm beaten egg whites have formed.
Beat the egg yolks until foamy
Now the egg yolks can be beaten one after the other.Important for good results: Beat the egg yolks for a very long time until very foamy.
Fruity sponge cake batter
Simply replace the water specified in the recipe with multivitamin juice or orange juice instead.
Carefully fold in the flour
It is really important that the flour is gently and loosely folded into the egg mixture with a spatula or whisk.
Prepare the baking pan
Grease the bottom of the baking pan or baking sheet well with spreadable margarine or soft butter. If you are using a springform pan, grease only the bottom, because the batter needs support at the edge so that it does not collapse.
The cake pan should be lined with a little baking paper only on the bottom. If you do not want to use baking paper, then in a springform pan grease only the bottom well with spreadable margarine or soft butter. Just do not grease the edge, because the cake clings to the edge and would otherwise collapse in on itself. I always prefer to use baking paper here.
Bake immediately
Now the sponge cake must be baked immediately. Longer resting times harm the airy batter and it would collapse in on itself.Therefore the tip: preheat the oven while preparing the batter, put the batter straight into the baking pan and let it bake in the oven.
No convection
With convection, sponge cake layers can dry out too much and break as a result.
Test whether the sponge cake is done
Do not take the sponge cake out of the oven right away; first test whether it is really done. Test this simply by placing your fingers on the surface of the sponge cake: finished sponge cake no longer feels moist, is soft and fluffy like cotton wool. If you press lightly, no indentation should remain, and the surface should be elastic and spring back up. But be careful: sponge cake that has been baked too long is dry and firm. A good sponge cake is always elastic.
Further processing of sponge cake
Once the sponge cake is fully baked, loosen and remove the edge from the springform pan with a knife so that it is well ventilated from all sides. Otherwise, moisture could build up under the cake and the batter could become mushy.
Curvature of the sponge cake surface
If the surface is domed, turn the still-warm cake out onto the work surface so that it can even out again as it cools.
Further processing of the sponge cake
Depending on the recipe, turn the sponge cake layers out onto a work surface or onto baking paper sprinkled with sugar and let them cool there before they can be processed further.
Peel off the baking paper
Carefully peel off the baking paper only after it has cooled.
Photo by Sabine, meinhaushalt.at
You don’t have a recipe? Then we have an example here: Milka Hearts Quark Strawberry Cake
