How to make Orange Sponge Cake?

Love is in the air... (but not me)

Hopeless romantic… Not me, but my brother A. I suspect and according to spy agent R (my 2nd brother), he reported that brother A seem to have fall for one of his female colleagues. Guess how he had planned to win that lady’s heart? He is going to bake her a birthday cake!

*Angry… He has never bake any cake for us… That girl is lucky. She better appreciate it, I hope. He made her a Chocolate Fondant Cake (Gordon Ramsley’s recipe). See below. Agent R and I gave him some tips on the decoration. It is funny to see him so anxious and nervous that we might wreck his cake. Hee Hee.



Anyway all the cake making at home had made my mum craved for homemade cake as well, thus asked to me to bake her one. I did. I made an Orange flavoured Sponge Cake.

Basic Genoese Sponge

Ingredients:

• 4 eggs (medium)
• 125 g of plain flour (sifted)
• 125 g of sugar (fine)
• 30 g of butter (melted)

20 cm round cake tin with bottom grease with butter
Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius

Flavour:

• Zest of 1 orange (can replace with lemon, but omit the juice as it will soured the cake)
• 1 tablespoon of orange juice

Method:

1. Whisk the eggs, zest of orange and sugar together till mixture becomes thick and pale in colour. The process will take about 10 -12 minutes.

I used an electrical whisk, thus it is more convenient. If you wish to strengthen your arms, you can try to whisk by hand, but prepare salonpas to stick on sore muscles after that. Hee Hee.

2. While the electronic whisk is mixing, measure the flour and sifted it, so that more air can be incorporated into the mixture later making the cake lighter and fluffier.

3. How to see if the egg mixture consistency is right? The mixture will become thicker after whisking. When lifted the mixture, it should leave a trail of “ribbon”. In layman terms, when you scope the mixture and let it drip, the dripped mixture will not disappear immediately. In fact, it should float on top of the surface for a while.

4. When the mixture is ready, pour in melted butter and orange juice. Mix a little while and stop. Do not over-mix as air will escape.

5. Then comes the hardest part, when the egg mixture is ready, “fold” in the flour. As there are air bubbles in mixture, it will be destroy if you stir. Instead, when we say fold, we scope the mixture over the flour to mix them thoroughly.

6. Pour the cake batter into the tin. Bake 30 for minutes. To test if it is cook, skew a wooden stick into the cake. The skewer should come out clean when the cake is cooked.