Easy Vanilla (or Chocolate) Sponge Recipe

I've been testing my new oven today with a recipe that my mother-in-law taught me, that she learnt from her mother, so it's a tried and tested classic. Although I've not quite got the settings perfect on the oven I was soooo pleased to be able to bake a cake! Our old oven had lost it's thermostat so cakes were black on the outside and runny in the middle.

So here's the recipe:-

8oz caster sugar
8oz margarine (spread suitable for baking)
8oz self raising flour (sieved)*
1 heaped teaspoon of baking powder 
4 eggs
Vanilla essence

1. Cream sugar and butter together until it's light and fluffy. The mixture should get lighter as you whisk it. It only takes 3-4 minutes using an electric whisk. Add the vanilla flavour here. I used some flavoured icing sugar but I've used vanilla essence in the past.
2. Add one egg at a time to the mixture with a tablespoon of flour.
3. Add the remainder of the flour and baking powder and mix. My mother-in-law doesn't believe in messing around with folding in flour etc so says just use the whisk to mix it all in. 
4. Lastly add a splash of boiling water and mix in. MIL says this helps it rise! Pour into a greased cake tin.
5. Bake at 170-180 degrees Celsius for 30 minutes or until a skewer come out clean.

In the oven, it doesn't cook any quicker when you watch!

I iced with butter icing and filled with butter icing and some jam I made last summer.

Butter icing is just 100g margarine with 200g icing sugar (powdered in the US) and I add a splash of vanilla essence here too. Mix with an electric whisk, it will take a while but keep going it will come together!

Sorry about the mix of metric and imperial measures. I'm used to metric myself but as it's an old recipe it's mostly imperial.

*for chocolate cake add two tablespoons of cocoa powder and make up to 8oz with flour

This takes literally 10 minutes to put together and tastes great. It also keeps well for a few days, unless you have a house with boys like me, then it disappears much quicker.

Enjoy x

Little helpers optional,
seen here aiding in icing cleanup

Update- Quick few pictures of the chocolate version (it was yummy!)