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True Sponge Cake
6 eggs
½ teaspoon grated lemon-rind
1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1 tablespoon lemon-juice
Separate the whites and yolks of the eggs, beat the yolks until thick and lemon-colored, add the sugar gradually, then add the lemon-juice and rind. Cut and fold in the sifted flour and cut and fold in the stiffly beaten egg-whites. Bake in an ungreased pan in a very moderate oven, 300° to 350° F.
A true sponge contains no butter, no baking powder and no liquid beyond lemon juice, so every bit of lift comes from air beaten into the eggs. The original gives a temperature but no time or pan size; the notes below fill those gaps.
- The hinge: keep the air inBeat the yolks until they fall in a thick ribbon and whip the whites to firm but still glossy peaks, not dry. Fold with a spatula in wide strokes only until no streaks remain and it deflates the moment you stir.
- Folding orderThe recipe folds in the flour before the whites, which is harder on the batter than it needs to be. Folding about a third of the whites into the yolk base first loosens it, after which the flour and the remaining whites go in more easily and with less loss of volume.
- Oven temperature300 to 350F is given outright. Use 325F; a hotter oven sets the crust before the interior has finished rising and the cake domes and cracks.
- Time and panThe original specifies only 'an ungreased pan.' A 9- or 10-inch tube pan suits this batter; bake 45 to 55 minutes, until the top springs back and a skewer comes out clean. Leaving the pan ungreased gives the batter a surface it can climb.
- CoolingInvert the pan immediately over a bottle neck or on its feet and leave the cake hanging until completely cold. Cooled upright, the still-soft crumb collapses under its own weight.
- FlourFlour of this period was generally softer than modern all-purpose. Cake flour, sifted before measuring, gives a tender crumb; if using all-purpose, remove two tablespoons per cup.
- EggsEggs of the period may have run smaller than today's large. Six large eggs give roughly three-quarters of a cup of whites and a scant half cup of yolks. Bring them to room temperature -- cold whites whip to less volume.
- YieldOne tube cake, roughly 8 to 10 servings. It is best the day it is made, and traditionally served plain, with fruit, or split and filled.
Sponge cakes belong to the family of foam cakes raised entirely by beaten egg, a technique that predates chemical leavening by centuries and that survived alongside it precisely because the result tastes of nothing but egg, sugar and lemon. The lemon rind and juice are traditional partners here, both for flavor and because the acid helps stabilize the beaten whites. Butterick, better known for dress patterns, published household compendiums aimed at the same middle-class housewife who bought its patterns, and a recipe like this one no fat, no leavening, and a technique that rewards practice was a fair test of whether she could bake.