Easy 4 Ingredient Sponge Cake Recipe

Soft, fluffy, and spongy, this sponge cake recipe is made with just four ingredients and can be used to make many different types of cakes. And most importantly, it’s so easy to make!

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About This Recipe

This is a recipe for a classic European sponge cake (aka Genoise). It’s made with only four ingredients and requires very little effort. This sponge cake can be used as a base for so many different cakes, which makes it perfect for birthdays, parties, and holidays! This recipe makes 2, 6-inch cake layers, but can be doubled to make 2, 8, or 9-inch cake layers.

This sponge cake has everything a sponge cake should, it’s spongy, soft, fluffy, and takes on moisture really well. The only downside is that you’ll need a hand or stand mixer to make the batter, although it can be done by hand but that would require a lot more time and effort. If you’re up for an intense arm workout go for it!

I’ve tried many sponge cake recipes, but this has to be the ONE! It’s so hard to mess up and the texture is just right, it’s fluffy but not dry and it’s very easy to make, with no fuss of separating the egg whites and yolks, or any hot oil like many other sponge cake recipes contain.

What is Sponge Cake?

Sponge cakes are light and fluffy cakes that are leavened with beaten eggs instead of yeast like many traditional cakes were. Sometimes baking powder is also added to give them more volume. It is said to have originated during the Renaissance Age in Italy.

There are many different types of sponge cakes like Angel food cake, chiffon cake, Victoria sponge cake, Genoise cake, and many more. All of these types of sponge cakes use similar ingredients but differ in technique and fillings.

What You Need To Make This Sponge Cake Recipe

Flour: all you need is regular all-purpose flour, not cake flour or any other type.

Baking Powder: this helps give the cake more volume.

Eggs: this is the main rising agent in the sponge cake recipe.

Sugar: I used granulated sugar.

Vanilla: this is optional but I just like to add a splash to the batter, vanilla extract just makes everything taste better!

How To Make Sponge Cake (Step-By-Step)

Step 1: In a small bowl combine the flour and baking powder and set aside.

Step 2: In a separate medium-sized bowl beat the eggs for a minute until frothy. Add in the sugar and continue to beat on high speed for another 7-8 minutes until the mixture turns pale, creamy, and thick.

Step 3: Add in the flour mixture in thirds, gently folding between each addition. Once you no longer see any streaks of flour, stop folding, you do not want to lose all of the air that was just beaten into the eggs, otherwise the cake will not rise properly. This is a very important step!

Step 4: Divide the batter between two greased and lined 6-inch cake pans and bake in an oven preheated at 180 °C / 350 °F for 25 minutes or until a toothpick poked in comes out clean or just with a few crumbs on it. Let the cakes cool for 10 minutes then flip them onto a cooling rack to cool completely.

Your sponge cake is now ready to be frosted and filled with anything you’d like!

Pro Tips

Bake the cakes immediately after folding in the flour, don’t let it sit for too long.
Do not overmix the batter, once there are no more streaks of flour left, fold one or two extra times just to make sure everything is fully combined and that’s it! Overmixing will result in the batter losing all the air that was incorporated into it by beating the eggs, which is its main rising agent. Therefore resulting in a deflated sponge cake.
How will you know if you’ve beaten the eggs enough? Use the batter that falls off the beater to make a figure “8” and count to 10, if the figure 8 keeps its shape that means you’re ready to move on to the next step. If not continue beating.
Always use a conventional oven setting to make sponge cakes (not the fan/convection setting)
Do not open the oven until the end of the baking time.
Let the cake cool completely before cutting it.
Measure your flour correctly! Adding too much or too little flour will change the texture of the cake dramatically. Spoon the flour into the measuring cup and level it off using the back of the spoon.

FAQ’s

Can I make the sponge cake ahead of time?

Sponge cake is best enjoyed fresh, but you could get away with making it one day ahead. Wrap your cake layers in plastic wrap and refrigerate for a maximum of 2 days, longer than that and the cake will become quite dry, but this can still be fixed by adding simple syrup to your cake layers.

Do the eggs have to be at room temperature for sponge cake?

Yes. When it comes to baking in general it’s best to always use room-temperature eggs and ingredients. Room temp. eggs blend more easily into the batter and help the cake rise more evenly than cold eggs. You can quickly bring eggs to room temp. by placing them in some warm (not hot!) water for a few minutes.

How many layers of cake does this recipe make?

This sponge cake recipe makes 2 six inch cake layers. The recipe can also easily be doubled to make 4 six inch cake layers or even 2 eight or nine-inch cake layers.

Why did my sponge cake deflate?

There can be several reasons this could happen:

The most likely reason is that the eggs were not beaten enough, sponge cakes rely on the air beaten into the egg to rise.
Expired leaveners like baking powder can cause the sponge cake to not rise properly. Always check the expiry date on your ingredients.
The baking temperature can also affect the rise of sponge cakes, that’s why it’s important to not open the oven until towards the end. This causes the temperature to drop.

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