Sponge Cakes, confused?
With the temperature in the high 30s yesterday and reaching 45°C today, it was just too hot to do anything, not to mention baking in this heat! So I decided to sit in front of the fan and did some investigation on the topic of sponge cakes. To get my mind around the different types of sponge cake out there, I’m putting it down on paper and this write-up is only my own conclusion (I must warn you that they may not be 100% correct)!
The basic sponge cake is made up of egg, flour and sugar. Butter (or oil) and/or liquid are only added depending on the types of sponge cake made. Nowadays, baking powder is also added to help with the leavening of the cakes to make them even more light and fluffy.
Then there are the methods used to make the sponge cakes. Traditionally there are two types of method used, the hot-process sponge and the cold-process sponge. Hot-process sponge is made by beating the eggs and sugar over a bain-marie (or double-boiler) until warm and then removing from the heat and beating again until cold; after this, the flour is folded in by hand, and lastly, the butter. Cold-process sponge is made by beating the yolks and part of the sugar cold, while the whites are beaten separately to a meringue with the rest of the sugar and mixed lightly with the yolk mixture; then the flour is mixed in, and lastly, the butter (or oil). Of course here we are talking about beating the eggs by hand without the help of any electric mixer. With the invention of the electric mixer, the hot-process sponge can now be done without the heat as the bain-marie is used as an aid to help with the beating of eggs by hand (is this correct, or is there other reason for using bain-marie?).
So here we go in comparing the different types of sponge cake (any inputs are welcome to correct any mistakes I made here):
Biscuit de Savoie, or Savoiardi (sponge fingers), or Savoy Sponge
Cold-process sponge (beat yolks and whites separately);
Does NOT contain butter or liquid.
Génoise commune, or Pan di Spagna, or Basic Sponge
Hot-process sponge (beat whole eggs);
May or may not contains butter (no liquid is added), but quantity of butter is always less than flour, normally upto about 15% quantity of flour.
Génoise fine, or Butter Sponge
Hot-process sponge (beat whole eggs);
Contains butter in equal proportion to the flour (no liquid is added).
Modern Sponge
Uses either type of process;
Contains small quantity of butter upto about 15% quantity of flour, and liquid upto about 50% quantity of flour – but then again many variations within this, the more butter/oil and liquid added, the closer it resembles a chiffon in texture, although sponge cake uses less eggs than chiffon.
Chiffon, or Chiffon Sponge
A variation of cold-process sponge (beat yolks and whites separately);
Uses more eggs to flour ratio than sponge;
Contains oil (not butter) and liquid, both more than 50% quantity of flour (usually around 60-70%).
Victoria Sponge
I’m a little bit confused by this one, looks to me like pound cake!
Beat butter with sugar, then eggs then fold in flour, or all-in-one method when using margarine;
All ingredients (ie. eggs, butter, flour & sugar) in approximately equal proportion.
The basic sponge cake is made up of egg, flour and sugar. Butter (or oil) and/or liquid are only added depending on the types of sponge cake made. Nowadays, baking powder is also added to help with the leavening of the cakes to make them even more light and fluffy.
Then there are the methods used to make the sponge cakes. Traditionally there are two types of method used, the hot-process sponge and the cold-process sponge. Hot-process sponge is made by beating the eggs and sugar over a bain-marie (or double-boiler) until warm and then removing from the heat and beating again until cold; after this, the flour is folded in by hand, and lastly, the butter. Cold-process sponge is made by beating the yolks and part of the sugar cold, while the whites are beaten separately to a meringue with the rest of the sugar and mixed lightly with the yolk mixture; then the flour is mixed in, and lastly, the butter (or oil). Of course here we are talking about beating the eggs by hand without the help of any electric mixer. With the invention of the electric mixer, the hot-process sponge can now be done without the heat as the bain-marie is used as an aid to help with the beating of eggs by hand (is this correct, or is there other reason for using bain-marie?).
So here we go in comparing the different types of sponge cake (any inputs are welcome to correct any mistakes I made here):
Biscuit de Savoie, or Savoiardi (sponge fingers), or Savoy Sponge
Cold-process sponge (beat yolks and whites separately);
Does NOT contain butter or liquid.
Génoise commune, or Pan di Spagna, or Basic Sponge
Hot-process sponge (beat whole eggs);
May or may not contains butter (no liquid is added), but quantity of butter is always less than flour, normally upto about 15% quantity of flour.
Génoise fine, or Butter Sponge
Hot-process sponge (beat whole eggs);
Contains butter in equal proportion to the flour (no liquid is added).
Modern Sponge
Uses either type of process;
Contains small quantity of butter upto about 15% quantity of flour, and liquid upto about 50% quantity of flour – but then again many variations within this, the more butter/oil and liquid added, the closer it resembles a chiffon in texture, although sponge cake uses less eggs than chiffon.
Chiffon, or Chiffon Sponge
A variation of cold-process sponge (beat yolks and whites separately);
Uses more eggs to flour ratio than sponge;
Contains oil (not butter) and liquid, both more than 50% quantity of flour (usually around 60-70%).
Victoria Sponge
I’m a little bit confused by this one, looks to me like pound cake!
Beat butter with sugar, then eggs then fold in flour, or all-in-one method when using margarine;
All ingredients (ie. eggs, butter, flour & sugar) in approximately equal proportion.
posted by SeaDragon @ 22.1.06
7 Comments:
Years ago, I taste a sponge cake that is so soft, moist and very fine texture. A baker friend told me that it is called a taiwanese sponge cake. As he is only chinese educated, he cannot provide further information. So which category this one falls under?
Hi SD,
Very hardworking ar!
I have done a little reading on this subject matter before and found that basically all sponge cakes are a little dry in nature and therefore calls for a layer of syrup to be brushed onto the layers before doing the filling/topping.
SD, hope you don't mind I KPO on Precious moments's question!
Hi precious moments: I know which taiwanese sponge cake you are talking about, this cake is indeed very fine and moist in texture and the Chinese name is 義美蛋糕. A very popular sponge cake in HK too!
The only problem is that it uses too much cake emulsifier to attain this texture. Will not dare to consume too much!
But I do not know which category this one falls under!
Happy Chinese New Year!
Hi Edith,
Before I saw Florence's answer, I was going to suggest it might be the Taiwanese version of the 'Castella Cake' from Japan, Taiwnese version uses cake emulsifier to make that very fine texture. Anyway I would label the Asian-style sponge cakes under the 'Modern Sponge' category since they always have liquid and oil/butter in their ingredients to make them moist.
Hi Florence, thanks for answering. Yes, you're right - the traditional sponge cakes are dry in nature, that's why they are always used as sponge sandwiches.
BTW, I remembered vaguely hearing the name 義美蛋糕 before. Do you think 義美蛋糕 is another variation of the Castella Cake 長崎蛋糕? Or are they totally different in texture?
happy new year Seadragon. :D
I have spoken to my friend who is a baker, he said that I have to beat the egg white correctly to achieve that texture. He didn't said about any emulsifier. I will try to get from him the recipe.
Hi Seadragon, thanks for the write-up sponge cakes, I learnt something new.
Hi Edith,
In my experience, it is very hard to produce very fine uniform soft & moist texture of the sponge cake without using any emulsifier, however that said, maybe I have been doing something wrong :p If you find out the secret, please share if you can, yeah...... The only recipe so far that I have tried and produced quite fine texture without any emulsifier is the recipe using only cornflour and custard powder as the flour element (the one in Nov05 Gallery).
Hi Angie,
You're welcome :)
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