Cakes

I really wish I was good at cakes. I’m not. The Victoria sponge/ sponge I use for layer cakes is always meh after I refridgerate. But I’ll include what I used regardless (it’s adapted from The Kitchn).
I use Joconde as a base for mousse cakes and for thin layer cakes on their own. It’s what often used for layers in opera cakes or those alphabet ones. Chiffons are fluffier, so if I’m not doing a lot of layers, I prefer those. I don’t actually have a chiffon pan, so I just use normal baking pans and they work fine.

ALSO, as a side note, sometimes recipes call for cake flour and I don’t have. To make your own, use: 7 parts AP flour: 1 part corn starch For example, for 75 g cake flour, just divide by 8 and that’s your corn starch amount. You would use 9g corn starch and 66g AP flour.

1. Joconde Sponge: [half sheet]

  • 70 g almond flour
  • 70 g powdered sugar
  • 70 g egg yolk
  • 30 g egg white (1)
  • 130 g egg white (2)
  • 45 g sugar
  • 55 g flour
  • 25 g melted butter
  1. Preheat oven to 440F. Get a sheet pan and lie down some parchment paper or silpat.
  2. Mix almond flour and powdered sugar.
  3. To that same bowl, add the yolks and the whites (1) and beat until smooth.
  4. Add the sifted flour.
  5. Make a meringue by whisking the second egg whites (2) with the sugar to stiff peaks.
  6. Fold the meringue into the rest of the ingredients.
  7. Finally, add the melted butter and gently mix.
  8. Pour the dough on a baking sheet (it shouldn’t really move that much since it’s a thick batter, so just make sure it’s spread out enough for the size of the cake you’re making) and bake for 6 minutes. Use a toothpick to make sure the batter has cooked.
  9. Cool cake and separate from silpat. Cut out your cake shape (6.5-7in).

2. Victoria Sponge: [four or five layer 6in or three layer 8in cake]

  • 224 g butter (2 sticks) + some more for coating, room temperature
  • 225 g granulated sugar
  • 250 g cake flour
  • 8 g baking powder (2 tsp)
  • 1.5 g salt
  • 4 large eggs
  • 4 g vanilla extract
  • a few g of hot water, maybe
  1. Preheat oven to 325F and coat cake pans with meleted butter or oil. Line bottoms with parchement paper.
  2. Cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. A stand mixer with paddle attachment is optimal here. Scrape down sides.
  3. In a seperate bowl, sift flour, baking powder, and salt and whisk to combine.
  4. Into the butter mixture, add 1 egg and a spoonful of flour mixture and beat thourougly and scape down sides afterwards. Do this until the eggs are used and finally add the rest of the flour.
  5. Mix until you get a consistency that slowly drops off a spoon if you scoop it. Add some hot water and mix to achieve this if the batter is too stiff.
  6. Add batter to your cake pans and bake for about 25-30 min. If you press the top, it shouldn’t leave a mark and should be springy.
  7. Cool the pans for a few min and then take the cakes out to cool fully.

3. Chiffon: [3x6in cake]

  • 3 large egg yolks
  • 25 g granulated sugar (1)
  • 2 g salt
  • 3 g baking powder
  • 85 g cake flour
  • 30 g milk
  • 28 g vegetable oil
    For the meringue:
  • 50 g sugar (2)
  • 3 larege egg whites
  1. Preheat the oven to 340F. Add parchment paper to the bottom of pans if you aren’t using an actual chiffon pan. DO NOT GREASE. Also make sure you don’t use nonstick pans. The cake needs the sides to rise.
  2. Add sifted cake flour and baking powder and the salt. Mix and set aside.
  3. In a small bowl, combine the milk and oil. Mix and set aside.
  4. In a large bowl, beat egg yolks and sugar (1) until the mixture becomes a pale yellow.
  5. Add the wet ingredients into the large bowl and mix fully.
  6. Now add the dry ingredients in thirds, mixing gently after each addition.
  7. In a different large bowl, make a meringue with the egg whites and sugar (2). First beat egg whites until foamy, then slowly add in the sugar. Beat until stiff peaks.
  8. Gently fold in the meringue into the batter in several parts, careful to not fully deflate the meringue. The first addition, I usually mix fully to get the mixture fluffy and then am more careful with the later additions.
  9. Tap the bowl down a few times to remove any air bubbles.
  10. Pour the batter in the cake pan and tap down a few times more.
  11. Bake for about 30 minutes. A toothpick should go in and out nicely.
  12. Take out and rest upside, if possible. I set the cake pan edges on inverted ramekins so that some steam can escape.
  13. Once cooled, remove. NOTE: I have had an issue where the bottom becomes droopy because of the parchement paper there. I haven’t tried without it, but it would probably 1. help solve that problem, but 2. might make it very difficult to remove.

Joconde:

Victoria:

Chiffon:

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