Baking Essentials: Chocolate Sponge Cake

Chocolate Sponge Cake

Making a Chocolate Sponge Cake is a necessary step to making some wonderful other complex desserts. It is a versatile recipe that results is an airy and light cake. It can also be a wonderful base for any other flavorful liquid. It will absorb juices and liqueurs and the flavor will get better with time. Naturally when I decide to give Chocolate Sponge Cake a try, I found many recipes and all of them seemed easy and delicious but this recipe caught my eyes because the fat is vegetable oil instead of butter. I always welcome a non animal unsaturated fat and it did not disappoint.

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cup of All Purpose flour

3/4 cup of cocoa powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon of baking powder

2 cups of sugar

5 large eggs

1 teaspoon of vanilla

1/2 cup of canola or vegetable oil

3/4 cup of milk (I used 2% Milk)

Tools:

2 cake pan 8 or 9 inches

Sifter or fine mesh strainer
Spatula
Stand Mixer fitted with a whisk or electrical mixer
Bowls

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 F (180 C)

Preparing the cake pans is a very important step in making perfect cakes. I showed you in details in my previous post how to do it. To read, click here.

Using a sifter or a fine mesh strainer, mix and sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt. Set aside in a bowl.

Place the dry ingredients 

Sift the dry ingredients

Mix the ingredients

Add the vanilla to the eggs

Use high quality large eggs

Mix in vanilla

Combine oil and milk. Set aside

Combine oil and milk

In a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, add eggs mixture and sugar and mix until combined and pale yellow.

Whisk the sugar and eggs, they start as bright yellow

The mixture becomes pale yellow

All this air is precious!

Add the wet ingredients

Add the wet ingredients

Add the flour and make sure to spread it all over the mixture. Using a spatula fold it gently. You don't want to loose all the air that makes the sponge cake airy and light.

Add the dry ingredients

Fold using a spatula 

Happiness!

Pour the mixture into the 2 prepared cake pans

Pour the mixture in the prepared pan

Bake in the preheated oven for 25 -30 minutes. Test doneness using a toothpick.
Let it cool down for few minutes then turn out onto wire cooling racks and cool completely.

Enjoy

Nadine

For Cake Preparation Tutorial, click here
Chocolate Sponge Cake Recipe from Manal Al Alem.