Basic Sponge Cake

This basic sponge cake was baked following a recipe by Sanjeev Kapoor from his book Sanjeev Kapoor's Cakes & Bakes. I followed the recipe with a little bit of modification of mine. I copy the recipe here on my friend Kaberi's request :)

Ingredients

1. 50 grams butter
2. 4 eggs
3. 1/2 cup+2tbsp sugar
4. 1 tsp vanilla essence [ I added on my second trial of the recipe 1/2 tsp more because the commercial version I used wasn't strong enough. However, vanilla essence should be used with discretion, as a bit extra amount will turn your cake bitter]
5. 1 cup refined flour [maida], sifted
6. 1tbsp baking powder [ the baking powder was not originally included in the book. However, I found the cake was not shaping up properly without the baking powder, which I think is quite normal- so I added the baking powder the next time I tried out the recipe. Then it came out perfect as you can see from the photograph above.]

Procedure

1. Preheat the oven to 180degree C/ 350F/Gas Mark 4. Line and grease an eight-inch round cake tin.
2. Melt the butter and set it aside to cool. Beat together the eggs, sugar and vanilla essence till light and creamy. Gradually fold in the flour, stirring with a light hand only in one direction. Stir in the melted butter.
3. Pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake for twenty-five to thirty minutes, till well risen and golden brown on top. Turn out onto a wire rack and leave to cool completely.
4. Makes one 400 gms 8 inch cake.

The above steps are exactly as given in the book. I added the baking powder with the flour and sifted thoroughly two-three times, and then added the flour-baking powder mixture to the other ingredients. Also, it is best to measure the ingredients with standard measuring spoon sets.

This is a simple, easy to make and very tasty cake a slice of which goes very well with tea.

Happy baking Kaberi!!