Orange Butter Sponge Cake 香橙牛油海绵蛋糕

A light butter sponge cake with mild orange flavour. Very suitable as a night snack 😋

Update: 3 December 2018
I substituted butter by rice bran oil and the cake was equally delicious and moist.

Yield: one round cake
Pan size: 6x3" round cake pan

Ingredients

40g unsalted butter/mild flavour vegetable oil #
60g top/cake flour

30g orange juice, low sugar
10g golden syrup/honey
5g orange zest *

3 egg yolks

3 egg whites
pinch of salt
45g fine sugar

# You can substitute butter by mild flavour vegetable oil.
* I saved my orange zest in the freezer so I can use them without having to cut a fresh orange.

Directions

1. Line an 6" round cake pan with parchment paper at the base. Need not grease the wall of the pan. Place a grid iron at the base of a 20cm square pan. Set aside.
I bought the grid iron from Daiso.

2. Combine orange juice, golden syrup and orange zest in a small container. Set aside.

Or, use fresh orange juice and peel from half an orange.

3. Melt butter at low temperature till reaching about 65℃ or small bubbles start to form at the bottom of the melted butter.

4. Pour the top/cake flour into the warm butter, mix briefly using a silicone spatula, and remove from the stove. Continue to fold till it becomes a smooth paste.

5. After the flour has fully combined with the butter, mix in the orange mixture from Step 2.

6. Next, add in the egg yolks, one at a time, and mix well.

Cover the orange batter and set aside.

7. Beat egg whites in a clean, dry and grease-free bowl, till frothy. Add in a pinch of salt,

and first batch of the fine sugar. Continue to beat the egg whites. Slowly add in the remaining fine sugar in two batches.

Stop beating after the meringue has achieved almost stiff peak stage.

8. Transfer about 1/4 of the meringue to combine with the orange batter from Step 6.

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

9. Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan.

Bang the cake pan against the work top to level the batter and to get rid of trapped air bubbles.

Place the cake pan into the 20cm square pan, and fill the square pan with about 1cm deep of hot water.

10. Bake at lower rack of a preheated oven at 170℃, turning on only the upper heating element, for about 40 minutes.

After the 40 minutes heating, reduce the temperature to 150℃, turning on both the upper and lower heating elements, for about 20 minutes.

11. Remove the cake from the oven.

Drop the cake with the pan from a height of about 10 cm to a kitchen towel thrice.

Let the cake cool down for about 25 minutes in the pan.

When the cake starts to pull away from the wall of the pan,

jiggle to loosen the cake,

and turn it out to a cooling rack.

You may want to dry the cake in a warm oven for about 15 minutes.

Cut and enjoy 😋😋