No. 3260

Sponge Cake

Biscuit Leger

Set into a basin fourteen whole eggs, two separate yolks, one pound of sugar and the peel of a lemon; beat in such a way as to have a very light composition while heating it slightly; in order to obtain the desired lightness it will be necessary to beat for at least thirty to forty minutes, then carefully mix in one pound of flour. With this fill a pound cake or "manque" mold three-quarters full, having it buttered and glazed with sugar and fecula, half of each; bake in a slack oven. Invert the cake as soon as done on a grate, let get thoroughly cold, then bestrew with icing sugar and dress on a dish. This cake may be served plain, without icing, simply bestrewing vanilla sugar (No. 3165) over it.

← No. 3259 Savarin a la Valence Large Cakes for Entremets No. 3261 St. Honore and St. Honore Sultana →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is a genoise-style sponge — no baking powder, no separated whites, all the lift coming from air beaten into warm whole eggs. Everything depends on how far you take that foam.

The hinge: beat warm, and beat longSet the bowl over barely simmering water and whisk until the eggs and sugar are just warm to the touch (about 105-110F, a little above body temperature), then take it off and keep beating until the mixture triples and holds a thick ribbon that sits on the surface for several seconds. Ranhofer's "thirty to forty minutes" reads as hand-whisk time; a stand mixer on high will usually get there in roughly 8-12 minutes, but do not stop short -- this foam is the only leavening.
Scale and pansFourteen whole eggs plus two yolks with a pound each of sugar and flour comes to something over 3.5 lb of batter, far more than one modern loaf pan. Ranhofer specifies a single pound cake or "manque" mold filled three-quarters full; to manage the volume today, divide it between two 9-inch round pans or a large 10-inch tube pan, each filled three-quarters full.
FeculaPotato starch. Cornstarch behaves the same way in the pan coating. Butter the mold, then dust with equal parts sugar and starch and knock out the excess; the sugar gives that thin crisp shell period cooks wanted on a sponge.
"Manque" moldA plain round tin with slightly sloping sides. A 9-inch springform or a straight-sided round pan of similar depth is a fair substitute.
Slack oven300–325F. A sponge this size wants 45–60 minutes at that heat; test with a skewer and by the cake pulling slightly from the sides. Higher heat domes and cracks it and sets the crust before the center rises.
Folding the flourSift the flour and fold it in in three or four additions with a large spatula, cutting down through the center and lifting. Ranhofer's "carefully mix" is the whole instruction — worked batter deflates and bakes dense and rubbery.
Lemon peelUse the zest only, finely grated, and add it to the eggs and sugar at the start so the oils disperse. Strips of peel as a Victorian kitchen might have used them will need to be fished out before the flour goes in.
CoolingInverting onto a rack immediately, as written, keeps the cake from collapsing on its own steam. Let it go completely cold before dusting with confectioners' sugar; warm cake absorbs it into a damp film.
YieldAbout 16 to 20 servings across two pans. Sponge of this kind stales fast — it is at its best the day it is baked, and stale slices are the traditional base for trifle or charlotte.

A Little History

Biscuit léger — "light biscuit" — is the plain warm-whisked whole-egg sponge of French professional kitchens: split and filled, soaked in syrup, cut for charlottes, or served bare with nothing but sifted sugar. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York, published The Epicurean in 1894 as a working record of that repertoire, and it appears there among "Large Cakes for Entremets." The long unaided beating is the point of the technique, not an accident of it — in a kitchen with brigade labor, forty minutes of whisking cost nothing. The instruction to dust the buttered mold with sugar and potato starch is a period professional habit that has largely dropped out of home baking, though it still produces the thin sanded crust that distinguishes an old-style sponge from a modern one.