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I love this sponge cake recipe. It’s easy and you can make hundreds of different cakes with this base. This is a classic European sponge cake (aka Genoise). Once you have this recipe down (you’ll memorize it after a couple rounds), you’ll be baking things that look and taste like they are from a fancy bakery.
This cake base takes on moisture really well from fruit, frostings, liqueurs and syrups. As you can tell from my cake recipes, I’m a sucker for moist cakes. Read on to see 11 marvelous recipes you can make using this sponge cake base.
Over the years, I’ve tested countless different ways to make this cake and this is the best, most fail-proof method for genoise that I’ve tested. This is not like American cakes and readers often question if it can really be that easy and only have 4 ingredients.
I want you to discover this gem of a cake and succeed EVERY TIME you make it. I hope you find this video helpful. We had you in mind! 🙂
Watch How To Make Sponge Cake:
Tips for Success (Read First!):
1. When no streaks of flour remain in the dough, fold a few extra times to ensure you aren’t missing pockets of flour at the bottom
2. Bake the cake layers right after folding in the flour – they should not sit too long
3. Always use a conventional oven setting (not a convection/fan setting)
4. An electric hand mixer will take 2-4 minutes longer to beat the eggs
5. Tip from reader, Hilda: “How do you know u get the right consistency? Lift up your beater (whisk) from the batter. Make a figure “8” using the batter that drip off the beater. Then count to 10 seconds. If the figure 8 still remains on top of the batter, then u have the right consistency. If the figure 8 sinks into the batter before 10 secs, then u need to beat it longer.”
6. Bake in the center of the oven
7. Place cake in a fully pre-heated oven
8. Do not open the oven door to check on the cake until towards the end
9. Let the cake cool in a room without any outdoor draft which can make it seem eggy
Sponge Cake Recipes you can master at home:
Blackberry Lemon Cake – soft and moist and has a fluffy lemon blackberry buttercream frosting.
Charlotte Cake – layers of raspberry mousse, lady fingers and fluffy cake.
Poppy Seed Cake – fluffy and moist with a hint of rum and it’s not overly sweet.
Strawberry Sponge Cake – boasts 1 1/2 lbs of fresh strawberries. You’ll love the simple and delicious whipped cream cheese frosting.
Black Forest Cake – A chocolate version of classic genoise with 1 lb of kirsch infused cherries and whipped cream. So good!!
Russian Apple Cake (Sharlotka) – Just 5 ingredients and 15 min of prep, then your oven does the rest!
Poppy Seed Cake Roll – Moist, generously filled with a cream cheese frosting, covered with velvety chocolate ganache and pummeled with salted pistachios.
Pomegranate Christmas Cake – With a crown of glistening pom seeds, this one’s a stunner for the holidays.
Story Book Cake Roll – This cake roll is moist, rolled with a vanilla butter cream, covered in decadent chocolate and the cookie crumbs give it a subtle crunch.
Kiwi Berry Cake – If you love fruit, this cake will make your dreams come true. Layer after layer of gorgeous berries.
Tiramisu – if you like tiramisu, you will love this!
I told you I loved this cake base. I’m Completely smitten 🙂
4-Ingredient Sponge Cake (Video Recipe)
Ingredients
- 6 large eggs, room temperature
- 1 cup granulated sugar, 210 grams
- 1 cup all-purpose flour, 130 grams
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
Instructions
Prep:
- Preheat Oven to 350˚F. Line bottoms of two 9″ cake pans with parchment paper (do not grease the sides).
How to Make this Sponge Cake:
- In the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with whisk attachment (this is the one I have), beat 6 large eggs for 1 minute on high speed. With the mixer on, gradually add 1 cup sugar and continue beating 8-10 minutes until thick and fluffy.
- Whisk together 1 cup flour and 1/2 tsp baking powder then sift this mixture into fluffy egg mixture one third at a time. Fold with a spatula with each addition just until incorporated. Scrape spatula from the bottom to catch any pockets of flour and stop mixing when no streaks of flour remain. Do not over-mix or you will deflate the batter.
- Divide evenly between prepared cake pans (it helps if you have a kitchen scale to weight the pans). Bake at 350˚F for 23-28 minutes (my oven took 25 min), or until top is golden brown. Remove from pan by sliding a thin spatula (here’s the one I love for cakes) around the edges then transfer to a wire rack and remove parchment backing. Cool cakes to room temperature then slice layers equally in half with a serrated knife.
If you make this recipe, I’d love to see pics of your creations on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter! Hashtag them #natashaskitchen
Hi can I use a 9 by 13 pan?
Hi there, here is an example where I made this a 9×13 cake but I doubled the recipe and made the cake layers separately.
Can I bake all of this in just one cake pan?😁
Hi Gigi, you can halve the recipe and try baking in one 9″ pan. I always caution adjustments with baking since it’s such a scientist, so it’s tough to say. The slider is configured to the non-metric measurements. You can halve this recipe, several of our readers have done so successfully.
Hi Natasha, love watching your videos and trying your recipes. I made the sponge cakes today and my God for the first time I got them right. Thank you for sharing this recipe.
Ps. I had to beat my eggs for full 38 min to get them all stiff and fluffy with the hand beater.
So for future I will be using the stand mixer
You’re welcome! I’m so happy you enjoyed it, Jiya.
I have just recently been making more sponge cake and am so pleased to come across these lovely recipes that I know I can trust. What a great discovery!There really are so many possibilities and your recipes display that.One thing that cannot be stressed enough-follow recipes closely and you will have wonderful success, just that simple. So many people stray from recipe and do what they think might work and then they wonder what happened. I follow your recipes to a tee and never have problem-ever. I think we should have cake every meal.
Thank you so much for sharing that with me, Carol!
Do you have an estimate that how many cups of batter this recipe will make?
Hi Alina, I didn’t measure it that way but this recipe makes 2 nine-inch round cakes.
Hi, I was wondering, can i add cocoa to this to make it a chocolate sponge? If so, how much?
I haven’t really tested that to advise. I do have a chocolate cake recipe here too if you would like to try.
Hello, first of all thank you for the awesome recipe which I have use many times, so I have a quick question what if I use the same amount of cake flour instead of all purpose flour from this recipe, would that effect anything? Or should I change the recipe around ? Thank you
Hi Kenny, I have tried cake flour, and the cake becomes very soft and airy. It depends on what kind of cake you are trying to achieve, but the cake flour makes the cake too soft and light for most frostings.
Thank you for the reply, I was going to make a mango mousse cake for my daughter birthday.
2 layers sponge cake, coconut cream in the middle, top layer which is the mango mousse consist of fresh mango puree, heavy cream and gelatin.which need to be refrigerator for 8hrs and then on top of the mango mousse is the mango gel which consist of the rest of the mango purée and gelatin. So do you think if I use the cake flour still a bad idea ?
Hi Kenny, cake flour will make the layers very soft and airy. I think it could work. Our mango cake however used regular all-purpose flour.
This recipe is good because the cake is easy and it holds its shape , perfect for decorating it for special occasions. But it’s consistency when you eat it on its own is like rubber and not pleasant.
That never happened to me before, Mariel. It’s supposed to be soft and fluffy and not a rubber like. Was there anything that was changed in the recipe?
Thank you for this recipe. I made it for the first time yesterday, and it turned out perfectly. I used a hand mixer, and it did take about 13 minutes of mixing. For those not familiar with sponge cakes, they are coarse, somewhat dry, and not super sweet; you will want to brush the layers on the cut side with syrup.
Hello Melanie, you’re most welcome. Thanks for your comments and feedback, so helpful! We appreciate you sharing that with us.
The recipe for sponge cake is absolutely right. The problem
Is with the oven. When it hits the target heat the temperature falls and so do your cake and other light desserts. With the old way of making ovens the target temperature held. Your desserts would not fall.
Thank you so much for sharing that with me.
I too followed the directions and tools exactly. I ALWAYS read all comments for each Natasha recipe, trouble shooting, etc. BEFORE I even start the recipe to insure success. This cake fell in the center. No joy here. Specifically focused on the eggs and sugar directions and timing, and look of this mixture to insure the “volume” was correct, carefully folded and NOT too much but cake still fell.
Hi Lisa, another tip for knowing when the batter is ready, is when you pull up on the whisk, the batter ribbons should be visible on the surface of teh batter for a couple seconds. Also, make sure the oven is fully preheated and avoid using substitutions in ingredients.
Do you grease the parchment paper?
Hi Tina, I did not.
Hiii, please help. My cake sink. What might be wrong?
I used hand mixer and added extra 2-4minutes as u’ve adviced. But I pause sometimes. And before I added the flour, I lined first my two 5″ round pans w/ baking paper. Maybe
it’s 5 minutes again when I continued mixing ingredients.
Does pausing affects my cake?
Are you mixing in the flour with the electric mixer? If so, that is probably the issue. You should always fold the flour in gently until well incorporated. Using the mixer for flour will cause it to deflate.
Hi!
Can I use this recipe to make tres leches cake? I’ve made your tres leches cake recipe and was wondering if the cake part can be made using this recipe to make it a little less time consuming.
Hi Zahraa, it won’t be the same with this cake base. I suggest using the tres leches base.
Can this be used to make a faster tres leches cake?
Hi, it won’t be the same with this cake base. I suggest using the tres leches base.
Question- when adding flower, I dont use the hand mixer?
Hi Sue, that is correct, you use a spatula there or the batter will deflate.
Made it using a jelly roll pan.. turned out great… I used heart shaped cookie cutter to make strawberry short cakes
That sounds darling! Perfect for Valentine’s day!
Can you use a sheet pan?
HI Yolanda, we used a sheet pan when making cake rolls with this same base.
hi! im planning to use this recipe as a cake base for my future korean bento cake! however it seems like it’ll yield too much. will halfing the recipe affect the cake in any way? cheers 🌟
Hi! you can halve the recipe and try baking in one 9″ pan. I always caution adjustments with baking since it’s such a scientist, so it’s tough to say. The slider is configured to the non-metric measurements. You can halve this recipe, several of our readers have done so successfully.
If you intend to flavor it what would be the right time to put add ins?
Hi TR, you can add 1 tsp of vanilla extract (or any), folding it in quickly before adding flour.