Delicious Sponge Cake

Often a Sabbath Cake (Ugat Shabbat) is a simple sponge cake. My favorite sponge cake recipe was given to me by Terry's grandmother, "Nan" (Ruth) Hutchins. It contains no oil or milk and uses only 3 eggs.














Here it is with a dish of blueberries... It is delicious!

Nan Hutchins' Sponge Cake Recipe

1. Take 3 eggs out of the refrigerator and let them sit at room temperature for at least an hour. They will whip up better if they aren't cold. When ready, separate the eggs, putting the whites in one bowl and the yolks in another.
2. First beat the whites until they are stiff and will stand in little peaks if you lift the beater. Once they are beaten, leave them until they are added to the batter at the end, just before baking.
3. Using the same beaters, beat the egg yolks together with 3/4 of a cup of cold water for 7 minutes, gradually adding 1 1/4 cups of sugar to the yolk-water mixture.
4. Gradually add: 1 teaspoon of baking powder and 1 1/2 cups of flour* to this batter. Make sure to scrape the sides of the bowl from time to time. You can also add a few drops of flavoring at this time if you wish (vanilla, almond, rum, etc.) though I rarely do. The mixture will look yellowish and creamy.
5. Now fold in the beaten egg whites.
6. Pour it into a greased angel cake pan and bake for 40 - 50 minutes at 325 degrees Fahrenheit (170 degrees Celsius).
7. The cake is done when the sides pull away from the pan. Cool upside down, supporting the pan on a cup if possible, so that the cake can cool evenly on all sides.
8. When the cake is cool, pry it loose using a knife to pull the cake away from the pan on all sides.
9. Turn the cake pan upside down over a plate. If pried loose, the cake should fall away from the pan.
10. Enjoy the cake as is or with fruit on the side.

The Visual Recipe:














Separate the eggs.
Beat the egg whites














The egg yolk - sugar - water - flour batter will be yellowish.














Cool upside-down.

*I have, in the past, "enriched" the cake flour in this cake by using 1 cup of white flour and 1/2 a cup of whole wheat flour (instead of 1 1/2 cups of white flour). The cake was also delicious.
This time, I used unbleached white flour, but replaced 2 tablespoons of the flour with 1 tablespoon of psyllium and 1 tablespoon of wheat germ.