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Sponge Cake
Yolks 6 eggs Grated rind one-half lemon 1 cup sugar Whites 6 eggs 1 tablespoon lemon juice 1 cup flour 1/4 teaspoon salt Beat yolks until thick and lemon-colored, add sugar gradually, and continue beating, using egg-beater. Add lemon juice, rind, and whites of eggs beaten until stiff and dry. When whites are partially mixed with yolks, remove beater, and carefully cut and fold in flour mixed and sifted with salt. Bake one hour in a slow oven, in an angel cake pan or deep narrow pan. Genuine sponge cake contains no rising properties, but is made light by the quantity of air beaten into both yolks and whites of eggs, and the expansion of that air in baking. It requires a slow oven. All so-called sponge cakes which have the addition of soda and cream of tartar or baking powder require same oven temperature as butter cakes. When failures are made in Sunshine and Angel Cake, they are usually traced to baking in too slow an oven, and removing from oven before thoroughly cooked.
A true foam cake: no butter, no chemical leavening, nothing but beaten eggs to lift a cup of flour. The two things that decide the outcome are the oven temperature and how gently the flour goes in.
- "A slow oven"Usually read as somewhere around 300-325F. An hour at that heat sets the foam gradually and dries the crumb without collapsing it. Too hot and the outside may set before the centre has finished rising; note that the recipe itself warns that failures more often come from an oven that is too slow.
- Do not grease the panThe batter has to grip the sides as it climbs. A plain aluminium tube pan, ungreased and unfloured, is the safest choice; nonstick or silicone surfaces give the foam less to hold.
- Beating the yolks"Thick and lemon-colored" means roughly five minutes with a mixer, until the yolks fall from the beater in a ribbon that holds its shape briefly. Some air goes in here, so do not shorten it.
- "Stiff and dry" whitesPeriod language for firm peaks, not the crumbly, curdled stage. Modern practice stops just short of dry, at glossy stiff peaks, which folds in more evenly.
- FoldingTake the beater out as instructed. Sift the salted flour over the surface in three additions and cut down and over with a spatula or flat whisk; each stroke you take past mixed costs you height.
- EggsSix modern large eggs are a reasonable substitution, though period eggs may have run somewhat smaller; six large whites come to about 3/4 cup. Have them at room temperature, which gives more volume in the whites.
- DonenessThe warning at the end of the recipe is the real instruction. Bake the full hour and test: the top should spring back under a finger and a skewer come out clean. An underbaked foam cake falls as it cools.
- CoolingInvert the pan on its feet, or over a bottle neck, and leave the cake hanging until completely cold before loosening the sides. Cooling right side up compresses the crumb under its own weight.
- YieldOne tube cake, best in a 9-inch or similarly deep narrow pan as the recipe suggests; 10 to 12 slices. Best the day it is made; it stales quickly having no fat.