Orange Sponge

Hi everyone!

So I feel extremely terrible for not having updated this space. However, due to the crazy workload I have in school, updating the blog has kinda taken a backseat 🙁

Last month, I celebrated my 21st birthday. It was a really great one, with two birthday parties & a nice 2nd runner-up in an internal case competition. Although I aged 10 years within two weekends (of not sleeping for about 30 hours each time), I gotta say that I learnt a lot and that it was a very fulfilling experience.

Since then, I’ve had to submit assignments, catch up with tons of work & I’m probably currently going a little bit crazy haha. Recess week is next week but even then, I won’t be having much of a holiday 🙁

So here’s the cake I’ll be talking about today – Orange Sponge with decadent cream cheese frosting. So what happened for my birthday was that my mom baked the cake and I did the frosting + decorating. I didn’t want to stress myself to make my own birthday cake and since my mommy bakes so well (Y)

The first one was rectangle shaped with three layers. I had so little time so I just sprinkled coconut on the sides to cover up anything haha. The second was meant to be a tall cake. I had great ideas for the cake but the heat of Singapore just made my fondant flowers slide off. The worst part was that when we reached the restaurant, the whole cake had lopsided to one side and it was as though my entire birthday cake had just been destroyed :'( Thankfully, my brilliant sissy and mom managed to fix it (I think it still looks decent, yea?)

Before they fixed it, the whole cake was just slammed to the side. I’m still pretty happy with how it all looks 🙂

Orange Sponge Cake

Makes 25-cm tube pan

Ingredients:

• 7 eggs
• 200g cake flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 200g icing sugar
• 150ml freshly squeezed orange juice
• 150ml corn oil (or vegetable oil)
• 1 tbsp orange zest
• 1/2 tsp cream of tartar

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 170 degrees C
2. Separate the eggs, with the egg whites in your mixing bowl
3. Sieve cake flour, baking powder and icing sugar in a mixing bowl. Form a well in the centre
4. Add egg yolks, orange juice and oil, and stir with a spatula until well incorporated
5. Add orange zest and mix well
6. Beat the whites with cream of tartar in an electric mixer until the egg white reaches stiff peaks (use the whisk attachment)
7. Add beaten egg whites to the cake batter and fold it gently until the mixture is just combined. Remember to do it such that you do not press too much air out
8. Pour mixture into an ungreased tin and bake for 50 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean
9. Remove cake when down and invert it on a cooling rack

Notes: 

Do not grease the pan or your cake will not be able to stick to the sides and, will fail.
Do not open your oven while baking or your cake may collapse.
I doubled the recipe to make an 8-inch cake that is 5-6″ high.

Cream Cheese Frosting

Makes slightly more than enough to frost three layers and the whole outside of cake

Ingredients:

• 1kg cream cheese
• 500g unsalted butter
• 23 tablespoons of icing sugar

Directions:

1. Beat cream cheese and unsalted butter together
2. Slowly add in icing sugar tbsp by tbsp

Assembly:

1. Place a slab of cream cheese on the cake board
2. Put the first layer of cake on
3. Frost each layer and then the whole cake
4. Place pre-made flowers (cut-out using PME daisy cutters) and sing the birthday song!

Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes and I’ll try my bestest to update soon 🙂