Chocolate Sponge Cake – hmmm
Have you ever had one of those baking days when things just do not go according to plan? Sigh, what can you do?
Last night, I set out to bake a light airy chocolate sponge cake for my hubby whose birthday is coming up this weekend – talk about being deflated (the cake, that is!). I was looking forward to slicing the airy chocolate sponge in half and brushing the middle with jam before filling it with strawberries and cream and perhaps dusting the top with icing sugar…well, that was the PLAN, right?
I found a recipe for a basic chocolate sponge and I followed its instructions to the letter and everything was looking quite good until it came to the actual baking of the cake. The instructions were to bake the cake at 175C for 15 minutes, which I thought was quite a short amount of time but being the kind of person that I am, I followed the instructions. Hah! I won’t be doing that in a hurry again! I pierced a skewer through at 15 min at found (surprise, surprise) that it wasn’t ready. I left it for another 15 before checking, then another 15, then another. I think I must have opened the overn door about 3-4 times before the cake was finally done, but the result was a very sad-looking collapsed chocolate sponge cake. The cake didn’t even have the decency just to be collapsed in the middle but it had to be lopsided as well.
This morning, I came to decorate the cake and discovered that it’s mighty difficult to slice a lopsided, collapsed cake evenly much less top it with whipped cream evenly. But I made a valiant attempt to make it look half decent and to distract people from the leaning-tower look by topping it with blueberries and stranberries.
I did have another look at the instructions and noticed that they used a jelly roll tin, which I’m now guessing means a really shallow tin that is used to make roulades…so maybe I didn’t follow the instructions to the letter then – oops! 
October 20th, 2005 at 2:17 pm
It still looks pretty darn tempting though!!! Whipped cream and berries are always a winner, even on a ‘disaster cake’.
October 21st, 2005 at 11:24 am
Mmm, I think it looks fab from the top – no one I know would be complaining about a little lopsidedness! And besides, he already got those cupcakes, didn’t he??!!
October 24th, 2005 at 11:52 am
It reminds me of my Mexican chocolate cake that shattered into a zillion pieces when I tried to remove it from the baking pan…it went into a bowl in chunks, mixed with whipped cream, chocolate shavings and topped with orange slices. No one was the wiser…
October 3rd, 2008 at 3:26 am
Yeah, my spongecake fell, too… but I baked it in a jellyroll pan. The instructions gave a temperature that seemed high (375 F) and a baking time that seemed short to me (12 to 15 minutes), so I opened the oven a lot to check on it and it did that lovely little “collapse on one side” routine. I wonder if it was the temp that did it or constantly opening the oven. My whole family ate it anyway because they are really nice, but if anyone out there has any baking tips, PLEASE let me know.
July 16th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
I make this all the time, and its never filed
This is a simple sponge cake that can be made in no time at all with only three ingredients and no butter. What have you got to lose?
Ingredients
3 eggs
125g (1/2 cup) caster sugar
90g (3/4 cup) self-raising flour
Method
Preheat the oven to 190 C. Grease a 20 or 23 cm round cake pan. or square ones work well. Really any shape will do
In a medium bowl, whip together the eggs and caster sugar until light and creamy in color. Fold in flour and be so gentle not to knock the air out. And don’t over mix, Just until combined. Pour into the prepared pan.
Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes or until the top of the cake springs back when lightly pressed. It feels like a car sponge !
Cool in the tin over a wire rack.
Tips
Add 2 tablespoons of water to the cake batter to make it moist. Add coco for a chocolate cake. And don’t open the oven until the end because when you open the oven all the hot air comes out reducing the heat of the oven and making the cake flop.