Strawberry Milk & Jam Sponge Cake

A simple strawberry flavour sponge cake baked using strawberry milk and jam. Using easily accessible strawberry ingredients, meaning I can quickly bake a strawberry flavour cake whenever I have a crave. To make the cake more appealing, two drops of red food dye were added. Otherwise, the cake would appear orange.

One drop of red food dye (front), or two drops of red food
dye (behind)

Yield: 1 round cake

Pan size: 6x3" round pan

Baking temperature: Preheated oven to 170℃ switching on only the upper heating element, bake at lower rack at 170℃ for 40 minutes. Reduce temperature to 150℃ switching on both upper and lower heating coils, and bake for 20 minutes.

Ingredients

All ingredients in room temperature

Using 55~57g eggs

35g grapeseed oil/mild flavour vegetable oil+

60g top/cake flour

30g strawberry flavour low fat milk

10~20g strawberry jam*

1~2 drops red food dye, optional

3 egg yolks

3 egg whites

pinch of salt

25g caster sugar

20g raw sugar

+ I use grapeseed oil as it has a neutral flavour and very light in colour so the oil would not make the cake appears more orange in colour.

* An additional 10g of strawberry jam will make the cake denser, but more flavourful.

Directions

1. Line a 6x3" round cake pan with parchment paper at the base. Set aside.

2. Mix strawberry milk, strawberry jam and red food dye in a small cup. If there are big chunks of strawberry pulp in the jam, use a pair of kitchen scissors to cut it into bit size. Set aside.

3. Loosen the top flour with a small whisk.

Heat grapeseed oil in a heat resistant bowl till you see convection waves appear at the base of the oil. 

Remove the bowl of warm oil from the heat source, and fold in the loosened top flour, into a smooth paste.

Mix in the strawberry milk mixture from Step 2 to the paste.

Mix in the yolks, one at a time, to the paste into a smooth batter.

4. In a dry and oil-free big mixing bowl, beat egg whites till foamy before adding salt, and gradually adding the cater and raw sugar mixture.

Beat the mixture at high speed and gradually slow down, till the meringue reaches firm peak stage. To test, invert the mixing bowl, the finished meringue should stick to the bowl well.

5. Take about 1/4 of the meringue to mix with the strawberry batter at Step 3, into a smooth batter.

Pour back the strawberry batter to mix with the remaining meringue, into a smooth batter.

6. Pour the batter to the prepared cake pan from Step 1. 

Bang the cake pan to get rid of any trapped air bubbles in the batter.

7. Place the cake pan in a 20 cm square pan lined with a iron grid at the base, and added with a 1-cm deep of hot water.

Preheated oven to 170℃ switching on only the upper heating element, bake at lower rack at 170℃ for 40 minutes. Reduce temperature to 150℃ switching on both upper and lower heating coils, and bake for 20 minutes.

You can also bake at 160℃ throughout for 60 minutes with both upper and lower heatings, but the cake may crack.

8. Remove the cake pan from the water bath, and drop the cake with the pan onto a kitchen towel thrice. This is to prevent the cake from excessive shrinking during cooling down.

Let the cake cool down for about 25 minutes, or till the cake shrink away from the wall.

Loosen the cake slightly, and invert out onto a cooling rack.

You can dry the exterior of the cake using the remnant heat of the oven for about 15 minutes. This step is optional.

9. Let the cake cool down before slicing. Enjoy the moist and delicious strawberry cake🍓😋

Greatly appreciate St Dalfour SG and Matrix Star Marketing for the free bottle of strawberry jam 💗