Professional Baker Teaches You How To Make SPONGE CAKE LIVE!

hello everyone from around the world it's an Olsen here and I can wish you a good morning a good afternoon a good evening even good night if you're watching from Australia or Southeast Asia I'm so thrilled you could be here for the second installment of om 101 and you voted for spongecake now this is a great recipe to pick I'm so glad you did because there are lots of great tips I can share with you as I move through the recipe I did provide the ingredients so perhaps some of you are baking along with me in which case we will get the cake made and into the oven and then the finishing part you can take care of later and I'll give you lots of ideas that way before I get started I'd love to take a few minutes to say hello to the bowl first hi mom dad meet you know Suzanne hee if you're watching Cathy if you're watching chef Patrick jr. chef Patrick lots of people I know are watching and I've been following the questions that you've been providing before we got started here lots of good sponge cake questions I will try and handle a lot of them work them into the conversation as I'm cooking but also I'll take pauses here and there because this cake takes 40 minutes to bake I'm not going to take 40 minutes of doing nothing just to answer your questions so I'll take a break here and there so I can take a few of your specific questions because you have been asking wonderful ones so a sponge cake is all about the eggs ultimately what counts is your whipping eggs up with sugar that gives the cake its airiness its structure and its volume to hold its shape and bake and be fluffy and light and you can really tailor it to your taste and and add little bits of flavor here and there that's different than an angel food cake which is made using only egg whites a chiffon cake which is made by separating your eggs you whip your whites you whip your yolks and you put the two together or what we would call a cream cake where you cream your butter and sugar together and add your other ingredients so lots of different styles lots of different topics for Oh YUM one isn't there and just to let you know I do have a birthday coming up soon and I might need your help on picking what kind of birthday cake I should make but let's get to this sponge cake which is based on the classic gem Lots punch now I have my 6 large eggs right now and they're sitting in a nice little warm water bath now I don't know about you but when you see a recipe called for eggs that are warm or at room temperature I rarely have the forethought to pull out my eggs hours ahead of time so what I do is I take them directly from the fridge put them in a bowl and cover them with hot tap water now for 6 eggs that takes maybe a couple of changes of water and give it about 3-4 minutes and then you'll find it warms up your eggs the reason you want to warm up your eggs when you're making a sponge cake is for a simple and technical reason you'll get a fuller volume from a warm egg or room-temperature egg than you will from one that's ice-cold I'm going to crack these into my mixer you will want to use either a mixer or electric beaters is absolutely fine we're going for volume here now I did catch a really good question from one of my viewers before we got started here I think it was Elena from Moscow was asking well what if I have medium eggs now eggs are graded by weight and so regardless where you are around the world you can accommodate any size of egg by weighing your eggs so a standard large egg is 60 grams the yolk is 30 grams the white is 30 grams so that really helps you especially if you're doing other recipes and you've separated eggs so all you have to do is crack your eggs into a bowl that's on a scale way out in this case 6 eggs times 60 grams is 360 grams weigh out your 360 grams of eggs and then you know you've got the right amount for this specific recipe I'm gonna hang on to this hole because I'm actually going to use that I've got one cup the equivalent of 200 grams of sugar and now I'm going to get this mixing on high speed and this is where we've got time because you've probably heard about whipping egg whites and adding sugar and being cautious not to over whip it when it comes to whipping whole eggs you can't overdo it honestly and you're gonna watch these transform right now it's a golden yellow color the warm eggs are now dissolving the sugar and that is posting the structure and the volume into the fun cake talking about substitutions here you can use coconut palm sugar in place of granulated white sugar in this recipe or you could use turbinado sugar it will lend more of a beige color to the front cake the reason I mentioned the coconut palm sugar is it registers half on the glycemic index so if you're trying to watch out on your sugar consumption it's a good substitution you won't get the structure of volume using a sugar free substitute the sugar here really is an integral part of getting that structure and volume and fine bubble structure into your sponge cake so you know what I'm going to take a minute take a look at here I have my laptop set up so I can read your questions normally I would have a whole question but I have my producer director of photography taste tester extraordinaire my husband Michael here because we're staying safe at home as we should can you see already it's been one minute how these egg whites have transformed and if you're mixing these by hand I hope you're using high speed even if you're using electric scooters move the beaters around the bowl this isn't done yet we can give us a good eight minutes so I'm gonna take that time let me read a couple of questions because he did some good one Mexico City I see we've got lots of young people watching you know what I saw a couple of good questions based on oven temperature and convection versus non convection this is very since we're baking a cake temperature is an important topic typically when you're baking with the difference between a convection oven and a conventional oven is the movement of hot air so a convection oven has a fan built-in that circulates the air around the body of the oven and that is excellent it coats these beautiful browning on things like potatoes and on chicken and quite often ovens well have a convection bake setting which is a slightly lower fan because you don't want to over brown the outside of what you're making too quickly before the inside has had a chance since that now oven makes the model to difference I find newer model to convection oven factor in the fan in the temperature so if a recipe says 350 or 325 you can assume that that's a conventional oven and it's a newer model of convection oven will just automatically factor that difference if you've got an older model like say five years older or more you want to reduce your oven temperature it with the convection oven by twenty-five degrees because that movement of the hot air actually accelerates the cooking of something now another good question I've had along the way is a few you mentioned before I started you'll have a cake that rises up and sinks in the middle and maybe some recipes been making for years now I figured this out and you're gonna give my mom a shout out I think there's this out when my mom's bought a new oven when they renovated the kitchen now this was quite some time ago and I was in my early baking days and I remember her saying that she was making a cake a gingerbread cake that she's sucking all the time with a perfectly level and then all of a sudden with this new oven it was thinking in the middle so if you take an oven thermometer I'm gonna go grab mine from the oven right now just like so not a complicated tool at all pop that in your oven you may discover that your temperature is not what you're setting it at so an oven if you set it at 350 and if it's oscillating from 375 dropping to 325 and calling that average 350 that's okay if you're baking cookies if you're baking muffins even or here baking pastry tart shells puff pastry what-have-you but if you're making a cake and you've got that set of eggs and baking powder and flour and sugar all times in the oven that up-and-down temperature can just cause a disaster in your cakes and you'll find it'll raise up about for year in greedy until had a chance to set pull it down so I think I'm answering quite a few people's questions with one answer to fix your temperature use an oven thermometer don't go always buy what's on the oven or when it beeps and tells you it's ready and watch that temperature so if you're setting it to 350 but you know it's the thermometer it's saying 375 then you can run your oven a little lower if it goes way out of whack you can actually call a technician and get that adjusted but wait until it's safe to go out again so I have talked for about five minutes here you see this beautiful volume I'm gonna shut off the mixer because it is super noisy and there's just no way around that but I've got a nice thick mixture and it holds a number eight we call that the ribbon when I paint that on top of the mixer I'm gonna do that for you a second a little closer because I want to give this a couple more minutes so my bit of advice when you're making a sponge cake if you think you've mixed your whole eggs and sugar well enough mix it another minute more you really can't overdo it so I'll take another moment to talk about getting your pan ready now I do like for this sponge cake recipe I like using a springform pan and it's not necessarily because of the latch you can use a regular cake pan if you want but what I like is the height of the pan conventional 9-inch pan 23 centimeters tend to be a little bit shorter what you can do is put a piece of parchment around the inside to give your cake pan a little more height just keep in mind if you line the inside edge of your cake pan with parchment because of the nature the fluffiness of sponge cake you'll find you might get a little puckering on the outside of the cake so what I do need to do though to get the cake off the bottom of my springform is line the bottom with parchment paper and I don't grease the sides of the pan it's very very important when you're making it's fun to take do not grease the pan and that is because this beautiful sponge cake this volume we're working into the eggs right now as the cake rises in the oven it needs to cling on to the sides of the pan to grow and grow and bake level if you were to grease the pan you would have your cake raised up but then it would slide down the sides of the cam pan and you risk getting a dome on the top of your cake okay back to lining the pan I've got my round here I've got a square of parchment and I'd rather not use a marker and trace a circle so back to geometry if you watched oh one om 101 last week we talked all about the Pierson square equation now we're dealing with basic circle with radius but no no math calculations involved here so I've pulled in my parchment into quarters like a napkin and as if I'm making a paper airplane I'm gonna fold it again and again so the point is in the center and now you just have to loosely measure the points goes in the center of the pan and I just hold with my finger where it's cut and now I've got my circle that will fit in the bottom of my springform pans so I'm all set and in that time we've gone that extra minute on this beautiful isn't it amazing six eggs 200 grams of sugar and this is what you get it's fantastic okay oh yes so I've got a prompter the size of the pan a 9-inch round or 23 centimeter springform pan or round cake pan now this is the point where you can add a little bit of flavor if you want because I'm going to dress this cake with some fresh strawberries I'd like to add a little bit of lemon so I'm gonna add a little lemon zest now you can leave this out if you want a neutral or just vanilla cake you could add orange you could add line you can add other extracts like almonds if you wanted to and I am adding just a touch of lemon juice now there's nothing technical about adding the lemon juice it's more for just that little sparkle of flavor you can leave it out completely there's no substitution you don't have to worry about the exits waiting there we go now it's time for the dry ingredients again super simple measurements so whether you've got this recipe in your head by weight or by volume I love the even measurements so by volume you've got 6 eggs 1 cup of sugar 1 cup of flour 2 tablespoons of butter that's all you have to remember in metric weights 6 whole eggs 360 grams as we figured out joinder grams of sugar 150 grams of flour and 30 grams of butter boom once you do this recipe once twice you won't even have to go back to look at the recipe you're gonna have it in your head and that's that magical understanding the ratios and and how ingredients relate together that you can tell I get a little excited ok so the flour I've got 1 cup 150 grams of all-purpose flour a quarter teaspoon of salt the salt is there in baking for the same reason it's there in cooking it's to balance flavors and season things you can leave the salt out with the recipe it's absolutely fine I am stiff ting my flour and I saw one of the questions pop up early on before I started which is a great question it's gonna set this down when is it really important to sit and when does it not really matter in the case of a sponge cake because we've spent all this energy working air and volume into it and we want to integrate the flour very quickly definitely sift that way you won't get little lumps in your sponge cake if I'm making chocolate chip cookies or banana bread I'll admit I do it's a good habit try and sift all the time because things like your baking powder baking soda could have little lumps in them you want to sift that through to work it in easily but I will confess I have been known not to sit my dry ingredients when making simple things like that you know if you're in the kitchen with kids baking together it's not going to ruin the recipe but it is important with this sponge cake now something I've learned over the years when I first learned how to make sponge cake in cooking school I was always told and taught to fold in the flour by hand and I ran into the same problem where the flour would either sink to the bottom of the bowl or a we get these little pockets of Flowery lumps in my sponge cake and that just didn't fly with me what I figured out is you can do this by me having your mixer on medium speed and you can add the flour while the mixture is going the key is to only do it quickly so this is gonna go very very fast are you able to zoom in Michael DOP all right okay the activity is gonna be right here the nice thing is it's only a cup of flour so goes in quickly one two three four five and as soon as you no longer see flour stop the mixer so in less time that it takes you to wash your hands with soap and water you can add the poverty or timely comparisons to your sponge cake okay so now it's time for the last step can you believe that we're already at the end of making a brilliant gem lots punch so let's take a look at this batter now as you can see it's thick there are no visible lumps from the flour I've got that beautiful figure eight I'm going to use this whisk again so I'm not going to get rid of it now it's time to add a little bit of butter two tablespoons of melted butter I find it it just lends a nice elasticity and a subtle butter flavor it's not overwhelming a sponge cake is about the eggs and that's why I add it have I made a sponge cake and skipped the butter altogether yes someone did ask can I use oil instead of the butter I would rather you just eliminate it altogether then use the oil I'm afraid the oil would be too heavy and weigh things down so as I was chatting I put about a cup and a half 375 mil of the batter into the bowl and I'm going to add to that my melted butter it's still a little warm it doesn't have to be completely cooled to room temperature it shouldn't be hot hot I'm going to add that and a splash of vanilla as my base flavor typically sponge cakes are relatively neutral you could replace half of the flour with cocoa powder then you definitely have to sift for a chocolate version but I find a sponge cake is about the foil for other flavors your how you're going to fill it top it frost it what-have-you so what I've done is I've worked the butter into this base batter so now I will have to do less stirring as I'm folding this into this because the butter has already worked in if I were to add the butter to this big base it would want to sink to the bottom and then it would just take longer to fold it in every last bit of batter there and for a step like this this is why I didn't get rid of it you can if you're using hand beaters you can just do this don't turn the beauty bond just use this as a tool because the whip attachment or a whisk is pulling through the batter not collapsing it and that way you won't lose that fabulous volume you just worked so hard to work into your six eggs and sugar we're gonna move this out of the way for a second here's my pan oh you know me I'm a tidy as I go kind of girl I don't like being stuck with the mess at the very end Michael laughing because you know I do my dishes as I go along I think that's the product of spending years as a pastry chef when you have to do the early shift at five in the morning no one else is in the kitchen guess who has to do the dishes part of the job alright so straight into the pan just a reminder this pan is not greased I've got parchment at the bottom if you don't have a springform pan or a 9-inch 23 centimeter pan you could make this in an angel food cake pan if that's what you have now I saw another great question come through I'll be right back and that is about when to tap your cake pan down before you put it in the oven because you see some recipes refer to this and it's a great question a cream cake a cake where you cream butter and sugar add your eggs flour alternating with liquid you may sometimes in that process get larger air bubbles and so you do want to tap the cake pan down to let those air bubbles rise up and pop well we've just put spent ten minutes putting volume into our cake batter so this is one where you definitely don't want to tap the pan and also when you put it in the oven it takes about 40 minutes and what you want to make sure you do is not open the oven for the first 30 minutes that talking about cakes sinking if you create a vacuum and open your oven and all the hot air escapes mmm that could cause your cake to collapse so let this go for at least 30 minutes before you open the oven to take a peek so I'll pop this in my timer there we go now here's another interesting point and now I'm gonna do the magic of television thing here oh look I have one already done I wanted to be able to show you this part of the recipe not just making the cake so I made one yesterday let it cool overnight and that actually brings up a great point when you're making a sponge cake the longer it has to sit if it can sit for a full day before you slice it and assemble it you'll find that it doesn't crumble as much or it's easier to slice and work with than one freshly out of the oven and cooled so getting to the point when it's time to check your cake out of the oven so it's it's been about 40 minutes and you're looking at it and you've got this nice level top even browning to check the doneness of a sponge cake is different than a conventional cake or a banana bread so instead of inserting a skewer in the center which can give you a false reading because it might come out clean but yet not actually be fully cooked you go for the spring so you press the top of the cake just quickly and gently with your finger when it springs back then you know it's done the eggs have fully set and you'll find that as it cools it may sink just a little bit in the Center but barely at all so you can see that we've got a nice level cake here now you're probably thinking to yourself okay and Olson you didn't grease the sides of your pan now your cake stuck to the pan well it is it's supposed to be so this is what I was referring to with this sponge cake batter rising up so it rose up a full two and a half centimeters or an inch to the top of the pan and it stayed in place so once your cake has cooled completely and I cool it completely in the pan I leave it in the pan overnight if I'm going to make it a day ahead and then I just used a straight pallet knife or spatula and I always like to start at the latch because that's where there's a little catch there the seam and I'm gonna get it off the cooling rack and I'm really pressing around the outside of the pan to release it there right through to the bottom and with the parchment at the bottom it comes off the pan easily we've got nicely brown sides not a lot of crumb and if you want to make your cakes ahead of time this is a great point to wrap and freeze your sponge cake sponge cakes freeze amazingly well and then you just pull them out let them thaw on the counter until they're done you know what before I get going I've got a few my filling ingredients here I'll get them ready why don't we take a pause and I think I've answered a lot of the earlier questions but I'd like to see what you're asking now how's everyone doing good staying up late if you're on the other side of the world nice midday break if you're here I'm outside of Toronto so the same timezone is New York City just having a nice midday break on a Thursday here oh I see lots of hearts all your sweet hello everyone Arnab I'm very very sweet uh-oh can a sponge cake be made without an oven that's true steaming can be an option with sponge cakes I typically reduce the sugar when I'm making a sponge cake so I have adapted in fact many of my recipes I I have adopted including a carrot cake and I made a steamed pudding version of it so if you're using a bamboo steamer or a wok steamer you can steam it the texture will be different it'll have definitely more moisture which is why I reduced the sugar because I find it comes out sticky so reduce the sugar by I would say at least 30% and you should be good there that was a good question an interesting one Oh help miriam stand up late new zealand hello hello mmm and the philippines oh and okay we've got a question from Saskatchewan same way angel food cake the question was sponge cake and angel food cake well now I gave you the option to vote on angel food cake this week so maybe I'll put that back on the list and we'll see if we can vote for it next week in it I can go into detail because while it involves whipping egg whites the method and result is quite different when making an angel food cake you need a different flour you're looking at getting the volume and treating egg whites is different than treating whole eggs so that's a good question yes it does have its own method I do have a recipe for angel food cake right here on Oh YUM if you want to pull that up I think that was Ted that wrote from Saskatchewan which is also where my sweetie is from beautiful phone Lake Saskatchewan how many people are watching from phone link okay Oh a good question if I reduce the sugar would it change the physical aspect of the cake yes the recipe calls for 200 grams if you were to reduce it any further than I would not do less than say no definitely not less than half but even 25% unless you're steaming it then then you need to reduce the sugar but if you're baking it in a dry heat oven you would not get the structure and I think you would find you get big air holes and the cake would collapse a little bit so that's excellent question to ask oh we're going back to our course on if you join me last week I made a song from start to finish right here on om 101 and the question was asking about refrigerating the more than 24 hours I will be honest I had a lot of quest after my class so I had to leave them in the fridge and I took my time rolling and shaping them and I left them as long as 48 hours but final batch I did and I baked a few off on Sunday and they came out absolutely fine so yes you can let it sit up to 24 hours between each rolling until the final roll try and shorten that time a little bit but yes yes you can great question Oh am I going to decorate the cake with flakes of coconut well that sounds lovely but I don't have coconut on hand right now what I do have is fresh strawberries and a cream filling so this is almost like a version a variation on a Victoria sponge a classic British dessert that is that celebrate strawberries and cream together what a great combination so I've got my cake all set on a wheel you could just set it on a cake plate the decor work for this cake I'm keeping relatively simple right now because you're welcome to do whatever you would like with your sponge cake if you want to leave it open sided and do cream and fruit it suits it the lightness of the sponge cake suits it if you want to do a more classic european-style torte with a buttercream frosting or a more elaborate filling a lemon curd would be delicious I've got lots of recipes you can just pull up on Oh YUM to switch out your filling a lemon curd actually would be a great idea right now but a sponge cake is the classic bake base for a lot of European desserts so whether you're looking up an opera torte now all the classic torts are skin baby because I'm under pressure I put my the pressure on myself quite often pastry chefs will make a simple syrup so they will start with a plain neutral cake like this this only has the hint of lemon in it and it's subtle but to add flavor you make a simple syrup with which is equal parts sugar and water cooked up until the sugar dissolves then you can add a flavoring you could add almond extract you could add a look here you could add anything along those lines and it would flavor the cake and add moisture which is another great trick to keep a sponge cake moist this one is freshly baked but if you know it's going to sit in the fridge for a while you brush it with simple syrup and that gives it that extra bit of moisture so for this version I'm making an enhanced whipped cream topping because I want something that's going to hold its shape a little longer and so I'm using cream cheese and lemon juice to again bring out that lemon flavor but also give me a set to the whipped cream so it doesn't collapse or weep or use which whipped cream can do and as I'm going through this I'm going to give you another great whipped cream tip so what I have is half a package of cream cheese that's been softened to room temperature so that 120 grams or 125 grams just plain cream cheese now to that I'm adding a third of a cup of sugar and this is just softening out the cream cheese a little bit liquefying it so it's going to give this cream filling a bit of a cheesecake taste to it now this is a place where I'm saying I don't want you to reduce the sugar in your sponge cake recipe this is definitely a place you can cut down on the sugar a little bit if you wish to taste but I like how the tang of the cream cheese with the sweetness and and a little bit of added lemon really does work here so I hope you can see everything clearly you can see now how much softer that cream cheese is now to work in through flavor a little more lemon zest so I can tell you zoom feature down with each oh yah 101 we're getting better and better at this and now yes I have some fresh lemon juice this is two tablespoons I think I'm gonna switch to it little just to work this in now the function of the lemon juice here is more than just a nice little tartness I'm gonna fold in whipped cream and the acidity of the lemon juice along with this cream cheese once it's chilled the lemon juice will actually react with the fat and the whipping cream and tighten it up and almost make without making creme fraiche it will hold its satin shape so that you can assemble this cake I wouldn't assemble it a day before and it's more because of the strawberries but the filling its salts will set for a full day so you can do this hours ahead of when you plan to serve it so you can see how liquid that is right now now let me grab my whipped cream I didn't think you needed to see me whipped cream for ten minutes or six minutes or by hand this is one and a half cups liquids so 375 mils I whipped to a soft peak now here is a great whipped cream tip it's hard to believe I know in Australia and in South America you're heading into your fall season now we're heading into spring here in Canada strawberries are going to be plentiful before we know it and so I love strawberries and cream together and have you ever noticed when you whip cream you add a little sugar you put it in the fridge you come back to in an hour and you put your spoon through it and it just collapses well it does break down and I have the easiest fix for that instant skim milk powder for every one cup or 250 mil of fluid whipping cream you add one tablespoon 15 mil of instant skim milk powder you can add it at any point in the whipping process and the the protein and the skim milk powder binds with the fat in the whipping cream and it stabilizes it so you can use that whipped cream to frost cake to dollop it on top of the dessert and it will hold every swish and swirl for a full 24 hours even when you cut into the cake it will stay in place it's absolutely brilliant so now we're gonna do this in two quick additions and just work that cream into the soft cream cheese mixture and it will seem soft is at first but as that lemon juice comes into contact with the whip whipping cream you'll find it actually starts tightening up a little bit did I add vanilla okay thank you let's add a splash of vanilla there we go see how smooth its fluffy but it's got a little structure to it so now we've got our cream and it's time for the strawberries which are relatively simple to prepare I've just washed Hult and sliced strawberries depending where you are seasonal ones may be available from the field around where our I am we have hothouse ones these strawberries came from will Van Vleet and his greenhouse also grows gerbera daisies so it was a treat to go down and pick those up with social distancing from gates and honor system so no one attends the stand you just pick up your berries and leave your money in a box now what I like to do to sweeten the berries I find if I add straight sugar well you run into the issue where they get watery they let out a lot of juice too quickly and this time of year I'm looking at my inventory of jams from last season thinking I have to use them up i hoard them over the winter and then all of a sudden you realize Oh strawberry season's around the corner I like adding a little strawberry jam and this really is to taste and adds a gorgeous shine to your berries it sweetens them and it even enhances the strawberry taste so if you are about berries out of season well it just takes it to a new level of course you can do this with blueberries raspberries whatever you wish that nice little gloss but it's added great ok so I don't want to block the view I want you to be able to see the next step which is slicing the cake how's everyone doing here okay I'm sorry you burnt your biscuits that is traumatizing when you burn something and it's that you know what I'm the worst at toasting nuts and especially it always is the most expensive net so I'll burn pine nuts I'll put them on a tray and if it smells like popcorn you know they went too far so I'm with you on the trauma when you overcook things okay oh good Stephane asked a good question does the airiness of the batter displayed over time or can I make multiple batches if I only have one small cake pan um I would say you need to get the batter in the oven within 15 minutes so if I would make a suggestion if you don't mind doing it in two batches the recipe divides in half very easily so then you can make while one cake is baking you can get the second batter going so when you flip it out it's quickly mmm but one cake pan you need to let that cake cool in the pan okay I'm talking through this with you Stefan you might need to just go cut the recipe in half and stick with the one cake and make a slightly smaller one I hope that helps you helps you out a little bit all right when it's time to cut a cake to fill it if you cut it across just in one direction chances are I don't know how you are but just like writing on an unlined page I drop by lines and there aren't straight so you might need their favor going down or up by accident so you want to use when cutting a sponge cake use a serrated knife and what I do is I don't cut all the way in but just about a centimeter in that way I can keep an eye that got my line right in the middle between the top and the bottom of this cake and now I've caught with where I started and I keep moving the cake around and this is not hard to do if you don't have a cake wheel that spins even on a play for a platter you can just take your time and just one or two cups and you get a little closer to the center with each cut and then you're gonna feel a little release this is also safer because your hand won't come in contact with the knife coming through the other side and there we go I can felt feel it let go and there is that gorgeous sponge texture it's got a nice moisture to it you will get with a sponge cake you do get a fine crumb but it's not a dry crumb oh we need to see it again it's got a nice delicate texture here nice moisture all right now the rest is really up to you the flavor combinations a lemon curd as I said would be nice in here the generous amount of cream you want to spread that from the center to the outside I'm leaving the sides of this cake open so I want to make sure you can see the cream nicely a few gentle pushes okay and now I'm good even layer of strawberries rogue strawberry even on its own if you wanted to do this simply or you didn't want to assemble the cake ahead of time you could simply dust the cake on its own with icing sugar serve the cream and the fruits on the side and you're all set appealing just artfully arranging a few so when I put the top layer on you can see them peeking through Oh smells good I think it's the jam as much as the berries okay and now the top layer get simply put on top and this you can choose to spread to the edge if you want I'm gonna go for the simple dollop and swish towards the center not spread it all the way to the outside edge honey do you want the spatula yeah can you taste the lemon and then just a nice generous sploosh of berries on the top and if a couple go arrant and fall off it's just natural and real and delicious right before serving zooming will be tougher a little dusting of icing sugar now if you pull it icing sugar on the berries it'll just melt away so I just put it just to give a little polish to the outside edge of the cake and there it is a gorgeous sponge cake with that cream filling but I think we worked in I hope I gave you lots of tips to build your confidence in making a good reliable sponge cake I'd love before I disappear I love taking your questions so I'm gonna just take a peek at what you're writing and see if I can grab a few questions for you I do follow up and we try and keep an eye on the questions your writing so this is not our only opportunity and also if you are tuning in late or you haven't seen an OEM one Oh one yet you can follow up and watch us later because we will post this as soon as we can as soon as we yell cut so let me take a peek here Oh a good question can you use this cake batter in cupcakes it will be okay it is not my favorite recipe for cupcakes and I'll be honest because when you'll definitely have to use the paper liners but the sponge cake batter may contract a little bit so you may find you get a bit of a while in your cupcakes my concern would be when you try and peel away cupcake paper because it's different than parchment paper that it may not come away cleanly so I would lean towards if you check out some of my other cupcake recipes I do have some including some that are sponge based so you get that fluffiness and airiness if you were to try it if you can get parchment paper cupcake liners those are different than just the paper liners I think you would have better luck there so I guess you've got a little online hunting to do as soon as we're done here that's a very good question Atena would love a lemon cake and cake and frosting oh here's a good question from Sarah gaara's asking can I whip 18% cream to make whipping cream I'm afraid not you will not get you need the fat content to get the volume in your whipped cream and anything under 30% will not whip believe me I would try with those little creamers detroy whipped cream when I was a little kid it won't work they won't work you do need the 30% or higher that was a very very good question tip oh yes 8:08 social sorrow is asking tonight repeats the whipping cream tip to stabilize whipped cream yes so for every 250 ml 1 cup of fluid whipping cream you add 1 tablespoon of instant skim milk powder let me just go grab it because I have it it's fine and granular you do have to make sure you're using the instance because the regular needs time for it to dissolve and you might get little granular granules in it this dissolves very quickly you add it at any point in the whipping process beginning and fold it in afterwards one tablespoon for every 250 mil and that will hold your whipped cream stable it's the easiest way to go oh hello everyone oil versus buttering Cakes all dough good question what's the difference the difference is the cake recipe itself and the end result you'll find that a lot of cakes that call for oil are heavier more dense rich cakes a lot of chocolate cakes call for vegetable oil where a lighter vanilla cake would call for butter vegetable cakes like carrot cake typically call for oil - for that same moisture absorption and ease of mixing - so if you really want a dense moist cake that's when you go or you'll see that oil is called for and I tend to go for a neutral vegetable oil olive oil I have specific recipes for olive oil cakes that are delicious but olive oil can lend a bitter taste and overwhelm the other flavors in your cake so a very good question to ask Sergio's asking if jiggles it's not ready yet oh you've got your cake in the oven smelling great but getting dark on top okay Sergio turn your oven down a little bit they'll be if you've still got a jiggle like you when you touch the top of the cake and you know you can tell it's soft underneath you're going to want to give it a little more time if we were baking around the same time listen I've got 15 minutes left on my cake so you're gonna need to leave yours and the oven for about 15 minutes more you're just about the point yes you can check on the cake if it's browning too much on top can you move it to a lower rack in the oven and you should be okay just so you're giving at that time it's a very very good question - Oh Sue's asking if I can add QA to my recipes in my books well that's a good point I do try and include a lot of extra tips information and when I write a recipe I try and give you a lot visual cues you here are able to see what I'm doing to witness so even if I'm not saying something you can see it happening I'm definitely trying to put more step-by-step photos in my books as well as articulating those textures when something a batter is thick or it should be thick or thin or pourable spreadable so that's a very good point so I'll talk to my publisher and see if we can make room for more notes these are great questions hello from Bulgaria you know I visited Bulgaria once went to Sofia it was amazing delicious shopska salad gotta have it breakfast lunch and dinner but I'm missing your question oh I missed the Bulgarian question I'll stop talking about Sofia now mm-hmm okay Justin what's the difference between a genuine and a chiffon they are very similar in appearance you are correct I find a chiffon cake sits between a Jenn Hua's and an angel food cake so we're an age of flu cake is made only with whites the Jen ones is made with whole eggs the chiffon is made by separating your eggs and so you whip your egg whites with some sugar you whip your yolks with some sugar you work in your flour and flavors into that yolk base fold them together a chiffon cake is best baked in an angel food cake pan so the same idea don't grease the sides it needs to climb up the sides of the cake and like an angel food cake out of the oven you tip a chiffon cake upside down to let the eggs etc as they're hot let them stretch so when they cool they hold their fullest volume a chiffon cake in texture will be beautifully moist it has a richness to it it is less sweet typically than an angel food cake but a finer bubble structure than a genoise sponge which is kind of your standard sponge so that was an excellent question to ask oh we got a question about Shh Oh a substitution for evaporated milk well I'd have to know where the recipe context is oh and we've got tips about not burning Kerem we might have to do an om 101 on caramel TJ I know who you see pop up on the feed here it is the admin quarantine he makes all of this magic happen we'll have a discussion and see if caramel makes it to our om 101 list but in a nutshell give you some quick tips what counts is you add it's to give you more control I put a little bit a thin layer of water in the bottom of my pan then I add the sugar that way the sugar starts dissolving in the water before the heat hits it so you look at those hot spots you want a little acidity you can add cream of tartar you can add lemon juice or you can add sugar in its liquid state by adding a little bit of corn syrup to it that will help liquefy the sugar so it doesn't crystallize before it caramelizes you do want to cook it on a high heat you don't want to stir it you want to brush the sides of the pot as you're cooking it but really depending on your heat whether you're using gas electric or induction when you see the caramel start to turn an amber color that's when you pull it off the heat because it will continue to cook if you like the points of caramelization you have if you have a bowl filled with ice water ready you can drop the bottom of the pot in it and it'll help stop the cooking so it doesn't because it will keep going so I hope that gives you some good guiding tips that's a good question to ask oh and julie's we're jumping on the caramelized sugar wagon here 101 about the stages of sugar from simple syrup to caramel all the different the thread stage softball hardball and what they're used for I think that's another great idea for om 101 we're getting some good ideas hello friend it's delicious oh good here's a good question what is the function of cream of tarter no cream of tartar is acidity in a dry form so it is great to add two egg whites when you're whipping them because a little bit of acidity helps stretch the protein in the egg white so it coaxes the best volume possible that's essentially it and in as I mentioned in the function of caramelizing sugar the acidity helps the sugar not develop crystals so you get a nice smooth shiny caramel and I can see Michaels face it is April 23rd and it is now beautiful Christmas like snowing outside we've had a crazy spring here in southern Ontario not far from Toronto my goodness and here we are making a lovely springtime sponge cake I think I'll just take two more questions because we're approaching our one hour this has been so much fun your questions are amazing and I love the opaque versus no bake cheesecake you know I have been baking for decades and it is only until this last year I actually got around to making a no-bake cheesecake and it's now my new favorite so that's a good debate for us to have maybe I have to do both as an OEM 101 cheesecake Wars Oh pastry cream another good idea I'm loving these ideas oh we're gonna have we I've got a lot of oh my no one's to to do here oh hello from Barcelona okay tips on beginners cooking a cake well I hope you saw and if you review this video again that you don't need complicated tools or equipment if you have hand beaters you can make a delicious sponge cake an oven thermometer is probably your best friend is you're new to baking and get you have to become friends with your oven that's a big tip for new Baker's and start to know where the hot spots are in your oven top right bottom left if you need to some ovens you need to rotate your pans because it's hotter at the back compared to the front but you don't need complicated tools or ingredients if you have a whisk a spatula a couple of basic cake pans there is a lot you can do and like anything that we try practice makes perfect so the first time you do a recipe is usually it's rehearsal or practice session sometimes it comes out great but baking like anything with repetition comes the learning in the advancement and that's why I know as Baker's you absolutely love baking and it's a bit addictive and it's that sense of sharing and giving but yet self-fulfillment at the same time that makes experiences like this so wonderful so you know what I think that's just a perfect place to wrap things up I hope you're all staying well staying home you can keep calm and bake on and I'll see you next week for another oh YUM 101 I'll make sure I put the vote out there if you're making the sponge cake right now or even over the weekend please post photos to any of my social tags listed below on this video hashtag oh YUM 101 because I'm following it and I will see your pictures have a great weekend everyone I think I need to cut into this cake oh we're actually gonna see me slices well I said I was gonna say hi to Magnus I'm not sure I know she's watching got lots of hellos cream berry all right hmm well enjoy everyone take care

Channel: Oh Yum with Anna Olson

Views: 580,367

Rating: 4.8592868 out of 5

Keywords: professional baker teaches

Id: Iiv6HQl4A9I

Length: 56min 29sec (3389 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 23 2020