Sponge Cakes

Ingredients

• •4 eggs
• •1 cup self-raising flour
• •1 heaped teaspoon butter dissolved in 4 tablespoons boiling water
• •3/4 cup fine granulated sugar
• •1 tablespoon corn flour
• •2 sponge sandwich tins

Directions

1. 1Grease the cake tins with butter - add a tiny pinch of flour to the butter to make sure that a good crust will form on the sides and bottom of the cake. Some cooks also put a small circle of greased paper in the bottom of the tin to stop the cake sticking in the center.
2. 2Whip the eggs with a rotary beater for a few minutes until they are light and frothy. Do not use your food processor - it won’t give enough aeration - this is vital! Sprinkle the sugar over the mixture, about 1 tablespoon at a time, and when all the sugar has been added, continue to beat the mixture until it is very thick. This could take up to 10 minutes. Sift the flour and corn flour together on some paper and then gradually add it to the eggs using your hand or a metal whisk. Stir through the hot water and butter mixture quickly and pour into the prepared tins.
3. 3Bake in a moderately hot oven for about 25 minutes. The test to see if the cakes are baked is when they are springy to the tips of the fingers and when they shrink a little away from the sides of the tins. Remove them from the oven and let them stand for a minute before tipping them out onto a cake cooling rack.
4. 4The traditional method of decorating these cakes is to spread strawberry or plum jam on the top of one cake, placing the other on the top of it like a sandwich, and then coating the whole thing with butter cream or whipped cream.
5. 5Note: Country cooks in Australia have always been famous for their sponge cakes.