Sponge Cake Base – Our Foolproof Basic Recipe

Preheat the oven to 200 °C fan. Put the sugar and whole egg into a stainless steel bowl and stir the mixture over a warm water bath with the Whisk until it turns lighter and reaches 35 °C. Finger test: pleasantly warm, and no more sugar crystals are noticeable. Make sure the mixture stays in constant motion and doesn't burn.

Once the mixture has reached 35 °C, take it off the water bath and whip it with the hand mixer or the stand mixer until it becomes airy and even lighter. Depending on the amount, this can easily take 10 to 15 minutes — don't let the time put you off, it's the whole trick to this sponge.

The mixture is whipped enough as soon as the whisk pattern stays on the surface and doesn't sink in. Mix White flour and starch and sieve both into the egg mixture. Carefully fold the sieved flour in by hand with a Rubber scraper. The mixture becomes thicker and collapses a little — that is normal. If you want to turn the sponge into an eye-catcher, add gel or oil-based dye now. Note: Metallic food paint and Powder color are not suitable.

Place a Cake ring on the prepared Baking tray lined with baking paper and pour in the mixture. The Cake ring has no base and doesn't need to be greased; conventional Springform pans, on the other hand, always have to be greased and floured. Slide the sponge into the preheated oven immediately after filling and bake it at 200 °C for approx. 26 minutes. It's done as soon as you can gently press it down in the centre and it no longer "crackles".

Take the sponge out of the oven and turn it out onto a sheet of baking paper — this way it stays nicely flat on top and bottom and doesn't bulge on one side. Then let it cool in the ring. Once it has cooled, run a Spatula or a cake ring knife along the ring and release it. The ring can be used again straight away for baking or put into the dishwasher.

The sponge is much easier to cut a day later — fresh, it is still too soft for that. The easiest way is to divide it into slices of equal thickness with a Biscuit cutter. You can process the bases straight away or, wrapped in cling film, freeze them for up to 3 months.