Basic Sponge Cake (Light)

This is the sponge cake recipe which I saw on Cuoca.com. This is an amazingly versatile light Japanese sponge cake with amazingly fine crumb structure. The original recipe is for Strawberry Shortcake, but you can really use the basic sponge for literally anything! I have adjusted some parts of it to suit our taste... and you can even watch a step-by-step video on how to do it here <iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/bHMBuxrQzf8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> 

Sponge Cake (Cuoca) – 15cm (6”) – Strawberry Shortcake

Ingredients:	6”	7”
Whole Eggs	2 (100g)	4 (200g)
Castor Sugar	65g	130g
Unsalted Butter	20g	40g
Milk	15g	30g
Vanilla X	½ tsp	1tsp
Cake Flour	60g	120g

Dairy Cream                    350g
Castor Sugar                   28g
Strawberry Syrup            18g
Strawberry S Size           12 pcs + 4 for garnish

Eggs to be brought to room temperature, sift the flour, line pan with baking paper on the sides and bottm. Preheat oven to 170°C. Melt butter and mix with milk at about 50°C
Put eggs in bowl and whisk to loosen, add in sugar and beat with mixer in a hot water bath (to warm to body temperature while whisking). Remove from heat and continue beating until ribbon stage.
After ribbon stage is reached, switch back to hand-whisk and stir-beat until you get smooth batter with fine bubbles.
In a separate bowl containing melted butter, warm milk and vanilla, take some batter and mix to get lighten up and get a closer consistency (combine better later).

Add in flour to main batter and fold in lightly until no more flour  is visible.
Add in butter/milk/vanilla batter and fold to mix well.
Pour into prepared tin, drop a couple of times to remove large air bubbles and bake for about 25mins until cake springs back to touch.
Remove from tin about 10mins after its out of the oven and set to cool in in the paper.
Assemble cake: Trim of browned top and bottom of cake. Use aluminum ruler to help in measuring while cutting into 1cm slices. Wrap sliced sponge in plastic wrap to prevent drying until ready for use.
Whip cream with strawberry syrup on ice water bath.

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