This post is dedicated to my wife - the world's greatest cakemaker.
For the record - I have an incredibly active sweet tooth coupled with an obsession for carbs and the two of these come together in their most holy union in plain ole Golden Sponge Cake.
I am an absolutely shameless glutton and a very snooty connoisseur of Sponge cake ... Sponge Cake/Golden Sponge Cake/Plain Sponge Cake, etc - is deceptively simple looking to cook and extremely easy to screw up.
My wife Rhea makes some of the worlds finest sponge cake keeping alive a tradition started by her Mum ... Her mum Manisha is the first person I have met (and the only one to date) who bakes without precisely measuring her ingredients and yet manages a perfect outcome every time! Rhea has resolutely and effortlessly followed in her footsteps and her Golden Sponge Cake is a thing of beauty and of immense joy to me and all those who have eaten it. The perfect Sponge is neither too light nor too dense and is just a shade undercooked (moist) on the inside and a shade overcooked (golden and chewy crusted) on the top. Don't ask me how she does it 'coz I have no clue. Perhaps it has to do with the loads of TLC she mixes in.
In this version she added some Vanilla and Cinnamon flavoured sugars that fellow blogger Vinda Dravid had given us at one of the Bloggers Meets. The hints of a lil' extra vanilla and the faint whispers of cinnamon sure enhanced an already perfect creation.
I first made cake under Mom's directions when I was still in school, probably class 7 or 8. She was lying down with her nose in a Mills & Boon and giving me instructions along the way...I was to make two cakes.
ReplyDeleteI followed her instructions to the last letter and the cakes were neither spongy nor airy but a weird sticky consistency. I was crushed and Mom suddenly exclaimed "Oh, you were supposed to use 6 eggs not just 3!"
Well, since then I have made reasonably good cakes. Either you learn from a master or your first time has to be really memorable!!
(My brother was fanatically devoted to Mom's cakes and he happily polished these off anyway!)
Thank you Kurushi for this lovely post :)
I'd have eaten them too :)
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