Pan di Spagna 

Sponge cake tricks and secrets to have it high, soft and without bumps in the center, a basic recipe of Italian pastry with which you can prepare any type of cake, but also sweets such as mini cakes, and sweet glasses. The sponge cake is soft and spongy, usually made without yeast, and is perfect to fill with any type of cream and excellent with any type of cake wet. The varieties are many, also try the wholemeal sponge cake or the orange sponge cake!

In my article I tell you everything you need to know about this basic recipe so used in pastry, it is a simple recipe but you need some precautions, my recipe for sponge cake does not contain yeast, but whip the eggs very well for at least 15 minutes, this means that the dough incorporates air and the dessert is soft, well honeycomb and perfect to stuff. The ingredients of the sponge cake are only eggs, sugar, flour and if you want lemon zest, you can replace part of the flour with potato starch. Then there are various recipes, who puts the yeast, who separates the yolks from the whites, I looked for the easiest one to leave you and obviously better, in recent years I have tried many but the best is certainly this one.

How many delicious and delicious desserts, simple, cheap and fast, can be prepared with the oven? The very soft cream sponge cake is one of these! In the past, desserts were on the table only on important holidays, on Sundays, on special occasions (Easter, Christmas), and were prepared with a few simple ingredients from the pantry. Today, which have become a daily presence on the table of adults and children (sweets, snacks, etc.), it is nice to rediscover the taste of homemade desserts, of those genuine and rich desserts that have nothing to envy to those of the most refined pastry, never go out of fashion, and above all do not contain preservatives or dyes! The very soft cream sponge cake is a baked dessert that will never tire you: fragrant and delicious, it is excellent for waking up breakfast, or for the snack of children who are greedy. The very soft cream sponge cake lends itself excellently to cheer up, together with a good tea or a hot chocolate, an afternoon with friends. Try it accompanied by a vanilla-based sauce, sprinkled with icing sugar or served with a scoop of cream or fruit ice cream next to it. If you are looking for a delicious idea for a special occasion, the very soft cream sponge cake is definitely for you. And let the feast of taste begin!

Let's see together how to make sponge cake!

And if you try it, let me know!

Ingredients 

For the sponge cake

4 Eggs

100 g Sugar

140 g Flour

For custard

3 egg yolks

50 g Sugar

30 g Cornstarch (or flour)

1 sachet Vanillin

For the syrup

50 ml Water

25 ml Alkermes Liqueur

To decorate

Strawberries to taste

Raspberries to taste

Blueberries to taste

Daisies edible to taste

Preparation

In my sponge cake recipe I whip whole eggs without dividing them together with sugar. The eggs must be at room temperature, so remove them from the fridge a few hours before using them. Turn on the static oven at 170°C before starting the recipe. Put the whole eggs in a bowl or in the basket of the mixer together with a pinch of salt and the grated lemon zest (if you do not have a mixer you can use the electric mixer) and beat the eggs at medium speed adding the sugar little by little for at least 15 minutes. Sift the flour and add it little by little to the egg mixture and mix with a spatula gently from bottom to top until it is well absorbed. To incorporate the flour to the eggs I did not use electric whisks but a silicone spatula in this way my dough incorporates air and does not disassemble. Grease and flour the mold and pour the mixture of the sponge cake starting from the side and never from the center, this will prevent the "mountain" from forming during cooking. Once your sponge cake is cooked, let it cool completely before removing it from the mold, and then cut it in half to obtain two disks of dough. Place the first disc of dough on a serving plate. Mix the water with the alkermes (Liqueur (Florentine specialty) obtained by macerating cinnamon, cloves, confetti and nutmeg in alcohol, flavored with rose essence and colored in red with the homonymous color.) in a bowl, and wet the surface of the sponge cake disc. Clean the strawberries and cut them into slices, then stuff the first disc of sponge cake with plenty of custard and lay the cut strawberries on the surface.

TIP

Never open the oven door during the first 30 minutes of cooking. Let it cool very well on a wire rack before stuffing it, it is advisable to prepare it the day before stuffing it. Instead of lemon, you can flavor it with vanilla or orange.