strawberry and cream sponge cake

strawberry and cream sponge cake

• 6 Nov 2022

I have fond memories of taking tea with my grandmother in the tea rooms of a long gone Brisbane Department store. We would always have a slice of sponge cake with our tea, either topped with passionfruit or strawberries.

I saw Pamela Clark, the former food editor of the Women's Weekly, whipping up a passionfruit sponge cake on The Cook-Up a few months ago which immediately took me back to those morning teas with grandma. 

It's not quite peak passionfruit season in Sydney but it is strawberry season, so I decided to make a strawberry and cream filled sponge cake. Please note you need to use wheaten cornflour to make this cake not corn starch, and I found wheaten cornflour at IGA, otherwise plain flour will do.

Here's the recipe for you, which I adapted from here, which makes a 17cm layer cake. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.

Strawberry and cream sponge cake 

Ingredients
2 eggs

pinch salt
85g caster sugar
50g wheaten cornflour
15g custard powder
½ tsp cream of tartar
¼ tsp bicarb soda

Filling
250ml thickened cream
½ tsp vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste
¼ cup (80g) strawberry jam, warmed
250g strawberries, sliced thinly (reserve a few whole berries)

Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C, conventional. Grease, flour and line the base of two deep 17cm-round cake pans with baking paper. Beat eggs, salt and caster sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer for 5 minutes or until thick and creamy. Sift dry ingredients twice onto paper, then over egg mixture; gently fold ingredients together.

Divide mixture evenly between prepared pans; bake uncovered, in a moderate oven for about 20 minutes. Turn sponges immediately onto baking-paper-lined wire rack; turn top-side up to cool.

Beat cream and vanilla in a small bowl with electric mixer until firm peaks form. Place one sponge on serving plate; spread first with jam, then with half the cream mixture. Top with strawberry slices, then with remaining sponge. Top the cake with the remaining cream and decorate the cake with a few whole strawberries.

The cake was as light and fluffy as I remembered but I need to work on my sponge cake technique because both cakes were a bit wonky.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen. 

Bye for now, 

Jillian