Vanilla Sponge Cake

We’ve been getting a lot of requests this Ramadan for an ‘aadhaige cake’ recipe. And, a lot of us are stuck at home without butter, so we’ve been getting some requests about a cake without butter too. So, here is one. It’s a really simple vanilla flavoured sponge cake. Serve the cake with your favourite topping, and if you need one, we’ve included a really lazy condensed milk based topping recipe you could whip up in a jiffy.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup flour
• 2 ½ tsp. baking powder
• ¼ tsp. salt
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 cup sugar
• ½ cup oil
• 1/3 cup milk
• 2 tsp. vanilla essence

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
2. Rub 2 teaspoons of oil on the bottom and sides of a 7 ½ inch diameter cake tin. You can just use your fingers for this, after thoroughly washing them of course. Then dust the tin with around a tablespoon of plain flour. You can just place the flour in the middle of the tin and just gently tap while turning the tin this way and that to have it distributed evenly at the bottom. To dust the sides, hold the tin vertically, place the flour on the side, and then just turn it like a wheel while tapping. All of this might sound confusing, but you’ll find it’s quite simple when you actually do it.
3. Sift together the flour, the baking powder and salt into a bowl and set aside.
4. Beat together the eggs, sugar and oil until you get a creamy texture. For this you can use a stand mixer, hand held electric mixer, or even your juice blender. If you are using your juice blender, running it for around 2 minutes on low would do.
5. If you used the blender, transfer the egg mixture to a bowl. If not, you can just go on to the step below.
6. Add around 4 tablespoons of the flour mixture into the egg mixture and mix until the flour is fully incorporated. You can just use a spoon for the mixing.
7. Then add in around 2 tablespoons of milk and mix until combined.
8. Repeat steps 6 & 7 until you run out of flour and milk.
9. Mix in the vanilla essence.
10. Pour the mixture into the cake tin you prepared before.
11. Place the tin on the middle rack of the preheated oven and bake until the top is golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. For us this took 30 minutes. But oven temperatures differ, so keep an eye on it, especially towards the end and make the necessary adjustments. 
12. When the cake is baked, remove it from the oven and let it cool down a bit before you remove it from the tin.

Condensed milk & cinnamon topping

Ingredients:

• 1 can condensed milk
• 4 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/3 tsp. salt

Instructions:

1. Add all ingredients to a pot.
2. Bring the mixture to a boil while stirring continuously.
3. Then turn the heat down and let the mixture simmer for around 3 minutes, while stirring of course.
4. Remove the mixture from heat and pour it over the cake straight away since it sets quite quickly. So remember to have your cake cooled down, out of the tin and ready before that. Also, depending on how sweet you want your cake, you might not be needing the whole mixture too.