my sponge cake story!

Last week was mother's day celebrated by the British.

I tried to make a cake for ee jie jie and wai wai's mami. I always feel that all mothers should be celebrated for at mother's day. Not your own mother only ok. All mothers should/deserve the very right to be appreciated on M-day.

But....

:(

This was what turned up.



See the arrow is pointing to the place where there is actually flour oozing out.

-_____-

So i asked the aunty who wrote the recipe.

She was sOooo kind!!! She replied pronto and gave me like loads of tips!! :) :)

She said that I prob din beat long enough and that i din fold in the flour properly. :( :(

Hi linfoong,
It sounds like your sponge has failed. The reasons could be that you did not beat the eggs to its proper ribbon stage, or

when you fold in the flour, you either did not fold in properly or you did it too vigorously and deflated the air bubbles in the beaten eggs. Always fold the flour in small batches and fold in by hand, don't use mixer unless you are very confident with making sponge cake.

The oiliness is an indication that the melted butter was not mix in properly. You must make sure the batter thoroughly absorbed the melted butter.

Have you make whole-egg sponge cake before? If not, you may want to start with the method of separating the eggs and beat the egg whites with about 2/3 of the sugar until firm (almost stiff peaks stage). Then beat the egg yolks with the remaining sugar until sugar dissolves, then fold the egg-yolk mixture into the egg-white mixture and continue from there, this method is much more fail-safe.

Another way is to make a basic vanilla chiffon cake and use it instead of the sponge if you are not too confident with making sponge cake. Hope this helps.

So I asked her again how to properly fold in, and the diff btwn sponge and chiffon cake. She explained to me in great detail weh!! T_T.. so touched... T_T Some more comfort me weh!!!

Hi,
Don't worry, I have done many failed sponge cakes before, just learnt from experiences :)

Always use eggs at room temperature when you make sponge or chiffon cake, a very crucial step. When you fold in the flour, it is best to use a large metal spoon. Hold the spoon so that the edge cut down into the middle of the batter down to the bottom of the bowl, then scoop upward so that the batter falls back on top of the batter, continue to turn the bowl and dig, scoop until you cannot see any dry flour. If the eggs have been beaten properly, you shouldn't worry too much about deflating the air bubbles as it will be quite stable.

If the flour is not properly folded in, yes, it will rise up high then deflate after removing from oven. The flour not mixed in properly will basically sink to the bottom, making the bottom part dense and kuih-like. The top part will basically rise like a souffle in the oven and deflate like a souffle after removing from oven because there is no flour to support it. <--- T_T so true, so true.. this was what happened T_T

A sponge cake is dryer, a chiffon cake is moist. Basically a true sponge does not have any added liquid in it (milk or water) and may or may not have any melted butter (usually about 20% to the amount of flour). But most recipes nowadays will add a little liquid in the batter, again about 20 to 30% to the amount of flour.

A chiffon cake has a lot more liquid in the batter, usually at least 50% to the amount of flour. It also uses oil instead of melted butter, and again about 50% to the amount of flour in the batter.

The techniques of making are also different between a sponge and a chiffon. The sponge is made like I described in this recipe, or as I described in my last comment by separating the eggs.

A chiffon is always made by separating the eggs. However, beat egg yolks with part of the sugar, then mix in liquid, oil and flour. Meanwhile beat egg whites with remaining sugar until stiff and fold into the yolk mixture. Hope this helps.

T_T

T_T

Very touched.

So i decided to try again. This time i separated the eggs.

I beat the egg yolk for abt 2-3 minutes. then i added in the vanilla here. it smelt like custard leh. hmm, suspecting custard is made this way. that means custard's made of raw eggs? OMGawd... *disgusting leh...*


And then i beat the egg white on top of a pot of hot water. ee jie jie says this will make the egg white stiffer wor...

and walla!



:) can turn upside sumre leh!!! :)

i beat it for 6-8 minutes.

And then i slowly fold the flour in. this time leh, i folded the flour using 1-2 tsp of flour at a time!! hehehehehe.. i will upload the video which i learned how to fold the flour later :)

folding in was the tiring part. cause i couldnt do it too vigorously and because im very short and the table is very tall............... arm very painful lah!!! >_<" and then hor, dunoh why, my baking tray rebelled against me!! the rim all of a sudden would not hold on to the bottom part..!!! my cake nearly fell out you know!!! >_<"

but it was wort it :D

because this was the outcome :D


so pretty hor????

hihihihih!!!!

ok lar maybe its a bit flat.. -_-'

i dunoh why it turned up flat. i suspect that maybe i over fold -____-. previously underfold, now over fold. so ma fan! >_<'

not sure what i wanna do with it yet. mite use it to make an ice cream cake :) il wait till jia wu comes back ans see how it goes. sorry lar, too excited, must blog now.. bwahahaha!

i'l post the recipe later lah! :)

and also after i decorate it :)