Aunty Daisy’s Sponge with Cream & Fruit

The cake of the day is a heavy hitter and party frequenter for lots of reasons. Let me ramble why below...

1. It’s an absolute classic. Sponge, cream and fruit (not jam in my kitchen, sorry, but it can be in yours!).
2. Dress it up, dress it down. Go crazy, do a double-decker, and fill with lemon curd, cream, berries, and pistachio paste. Or just plain and simple as I’ve done below — whatever is fitting for your birthday Kings and Queens.
3. It only gets better with age (till it doesn’t). There’s a sweet spot when this cake is better, I think it’s just over a day when everything has relaxed into each other. This point stops when the cream goes funky BUT it’s not hard to finish it before it gets to this.
4. Sponge cakes get a bad wrap for being “hard to make” but maybe you need to stop saying this and follow this recipe to a tee and see how you go. Just remember there are NO steps to skip, ALL notes are important and yes, your eggs have to be at room temperature, not from the fridge. Patience is a vitrueee.
5. This recipe is from Aunty Daisy who is my Nana’s sister-in-law. I wonder where she got it from? Hard to say. What I can say is this cake has won many-a-country-show blue ribbons.
6. It uses dessert spoons?! Not sure what that is? I just use a regular “big” spoon from the drawer and this works a treat. If you’re a stickler for the rules Google says it = 2 teaspoons
7. This recipe makes two round 20cm cakes so you can stack them for a HUGE cake or pop one in a large ziplock and freeze it for your next occasion. Just pull it out a few hours beforehand and allow it to defrost before dressing with cream and fruits. You won’t notice any difference in quality I promise!

Ingredients

6 room temperature free-range eggs
1 cup sugar
1 pinch salt
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup cornflour
2 level teaspoons baking powder
2 level dessert spoons plain flour (see note 6 above if you’re not sure what I'm on about here)

To serve (one cake)

300ml heavy cream
2 tsp vanilla
2 tsp icing sugar
Your choice of fruits and berries (I used raspberries and passionfruit)
Lemon or passionfruit curd is also lovely

Make it

Preheat your oven to 170˚C fan forced and grease and line two 20cm round baking tins with baking paper.

In a mixmaster (cake mixer, kitchen aid, whatever you call it!) beat the eggs, sugar, salt and vanilla on low to combine for a few seconds then up to high for five minutes till light and floofy.

Sift all your dry ingredients (corn flour, baking powder and plain flour) four, yes, FOUR times.

In four goes (so around 1/4 cup at a time) fold the sifted dry mix into the floofy egg mix, making sure not the knock out the bubbles but getting it all incorporated. Patience!

Gently pour the mix into the two prepared tins, scraping out all the remains from the bowl so not one drop is wasted. If you notice some flour clumps appear halfway, stop and give it an extra couple of folds before you continue pouring.

Pop in the oven for 20-25mins till you can gently touch the top and it gives a slight bounce back. Tip them onto a drying rack to cool completely and remove the paper from the bottoms. Don't think about adding cream until it’s completely cooled.

To serve one of the cakes:  whip the cream, vanilla and sugar till soft and billowy peaks appear. Dollop and spread across the top of your cake. Top with loads of fresh fruit and dollops of lemon curd if you’ve got it!

Pop the kettle on and enjoy one of life’s great cakes.