Sponge cake is the lightest and most lush version of flour confectionery. For the dough to work, choose fresh ingredients and beat them thoroughly. Homemade biscuit will be an excellent base for cakes, pastries, rolls. Top it up with cream, jam, or fruit. And the usual sprinkling of powdered sugar will turn a freshly baked biscuit into an exquisite delicacy.
In the preparation of a biscuit, all stages are important: selection of products, preparation of dough, proper baking. The finished product should have a fluffy and airy texture, not fall off, retaining its shape after baking.
When preparing the dough, strictly observe the proportions. Eggs must be fresh, use only wheat flour of the highest grade. If you want a more crumbly biscuit, replace a quarter of the flour with potato starch.
For a particularly fluffy sponge cake, cook the dough cold. Beat 6 eggs, separate the yolks from the whites. Whisk the yolks with 4 tbsp. tablespoons of sugar, until the mass increases in volume by 2-3 times, and all the sugar grains are completely dissolved. In a separate bowl, beat the whites into a strong foam, adding 2 tbsp. tablespoons of sugar. Sift 1 cup wheat flour.
Add a third of the whipped whites to the yolk mass, mix gently from top to bottom. Add flour in portions and mix again. Then lay out the remaining proteins. A properly prepared dough should be fluffy, with a lot of small bubbles.
If desired, chopped nuts, lemon zest, or cocoa powder can be added to the main biscuit.
You can make a biscuit according to another recipe. Mash 6 egg yolks with 1 cup white sugar. Add 1 cup fresh sour cream and stir until smooth. In a separate bowl, beat 6 proteins into a foam and sift 2 cups of wheat flour. Pour the whipped whites and flour into the yolk-sour cream mass in portions, carefully kneading the dough.
The biscuit is baked on a baking sheet or in tins, in a fairly hot, but not overheated oven. To prevent the dough from dropping, heat the oven well before placing the biscuit in it. The baking time depends on the thickness of the crust. A product with a thickness of 30-40 mm is baked for about half an hour, and a very thin crust is cooked for no more than 15 minutes. The finished dough should not stand, immediately after beating, you should start baking.
Pour the dough into a greased, lightly floured baking dish. If desired, the mold can be lined with oiled baking paper. Place the product in an oven heated to 200-220 ° C. Try not to open the oven door for the first 10 minutes. Delicate biscuit does not tolerate shaking and sudden changes in temperature. The finished product will rise with a lush hat and acquire a beautiful ruddy surface. Check the readiness of the biscuit by piercing it with a wooden stick. After sticking in, it should remain dry, without traces of dough.
If the biscuit is browned, but the inside is still damp, cover the surface of the dough with paper moistened with water and continue baking.
Remove the finished biscuit from the oven and cool slightly. Then carefully remove the cake from the mold, tracing its walls with a knife from the inside. The freshly baked biscuit is very tender. It should cool completely on the board, which will take at least 4 hours. Only after that you can start impregnating the cake or smearing it with cream. If you soak a hot biscuit with syrup, it can fall off and even break.
