Fat Free Sponge Cake – Journey From A Polish Kitchen

Tort Melba – Fat Free Sponge

This tort – layer cake – mimics a pêche melba – peach melba dessert .
It is a recipe for a fat free sponge cake, sandwiched with a filling made from yoghurt cheese or cream cheese and puréed tinned peaches plus a thick raspberry sauce.
I used an English quick style version of the sponge cake.

Ingredients -Fat Free sponge

4 eggs
150g caster sugar
150g plain flour
2 teaspoons of baking powder

Method – Fat Free sponge

Pre-heat the oven to GM4 – 180°C
Grease and line the base of two 18cm diameter baking tins.
In a bowl whisk the eggs and caster sugar until they are pale and creamy.
Sift the flour and the baking powder together.
Gently fold in the flour.
Pour the mixture into the tins and bake for 25-30 minutes until golden.
Leave to cool completely.

Ingredients -Filling

Tin of peaches
200g of yoghurt cheese or cream cheese
1-2 tablespoons of icing sugar

Method – Filling

Drain the peaches from the juice/syrup.
Save the juice.
Chop the peaches and then purée them.
Mix together the yoghurt cheese and the puréed peaches.
Add the sugar – do not make it too sweet.

Ingredients – Raspberry Sauce

100g of raspberry jam
50ml of water

Method – Raspberry Sauce

Put the jam and water into a small saucepan.
Heat gently and stir with a wooden spoon.
Heat until the sauce is thick and smooth.
Leave to cool.

Assembling the cake

Place one of the cakes onto a serving plate or stand.
Prick the cake with a wooden skewer.
Sprinkle half the peach juice over the cake.
*
Spread half the raspberry sauce over the cake.
Spread the peach filling on the cake. (You might not need all of it)
Drizzle the rest of the raspberry sauce on the filling.
*
Prick the other cake with a wooden skewer.
Place the second cake on top.
Sprinkle the rest of the peach juice over the cake.
*
Dust with icing sugar before serving.

Greenway Hostess tea plate by John Russell
1960 – 1979

Note

There is more than enough filling with this size cake.
You might try using some to slightly cover the sides of the cake as well.
This modern spreading of the icing is called “semi-naked”.

Tort – Jadwiga

I remember my mother making this as a no-bake tort using sponge fingers.

She called it tort Jadwiga.

I have not been able to find a recipe for this other than in my notes and now I wonder whether she called it after me!

Partly because I did not have any sponge fingers and partly because I wanted to make a round cake – I decided to make this by baking two round fat free sponges.

Three are 4 parts to the ingredients list:

Fat free sponges – I used a quick English style version
Juice of a large orange
Rum & Almond butter icing
Toasted flaked almonds to decorate.

Ingredients -Fat Free sponge

4 eggs
150g caster sugar
150g self raising flour

Method – Fat Free sponge

Pre-heat the oven to GM4 – 180°C
Grease and line the base of two 18cm diameter baking tins.
In a bowl whisk the eggs and caster sugar until they are pale and creamy.
Gently fold in the flour.
Pour the mixture into the tins and bake for 25-30 minutes until golden.

Ingredients – Butter Cream

110g unsalted butter
50g ground almonds
2 egg yolks
2 tablespoons of rum
300g icing sugar (approx)

Method – Butter Cream

Cream the butter with around half of the icing sugar.
Add the egg yolks and cream again till fluffy.
Add the ground almonds and the rum and whisk again.
Start adding the rest of the icing sugar until you have a thick butter cream.

Assembling the tort

Prick the top of each sponge with a skewer.
Place one of the sponges on the cake stand or plate you are going to use.
Using a spoon pour half the orange juice over the base of the tort.
Put a layer of the butter cream over the base.
Put the second cake on top and gently pour the rest of the orange juice over it.
Using a small spatula cover the top and sides with the rest of the butter cream.
Scatter the almond flakes over the edge of the top and around the sides of the tort.

Tea set by Royal Standard – Lyndale from the 1950s

Biszkopciki – Little Sponge Cakes

Biszcopciki, Sponge drops or fingers, Lady Fingers and Savoiardi (Italian) are names given to little light sponge cakes often with a light sugar crust.

In many older recipes eggs are separated and then the white and yolks beaten separately with sugar and these two mixtures brought together and plain flour added.

I have gone for a slightly easier version, using a more English sponge mixture with whole eggs and self raising flour but have used an icing sugar topping which is simple but wonderful!

You can use a piping bag to make these into fingers but I have made them into little tablespoon sized drops.

Ingredients

2 eggs
75g caster sugar
75g self raising flour
*
2-3 tablespoons of icing sugar

Method

Pre-heat the oven to GM 5 – 190°C.
Line two baking sheets with baking paper.
Whisk the eggs with the sugar until they are pale and thick.
Sift the flour.
Gently fold the flour into the whisked mixture.
Place tablespoonfuls of sponge mixture onto the trays, leaving them some distance apart.
Sift around 1 tablespoon of icing sugar over the drops.
Leave for 5 minutes (set a timer).
Sift another tablespoon of icing sugar over the drops.
Bake for 5 minutes and change the trays around.
Bake for another 3 to 5 minutes.
Allow to cool for 5 minutes then remove with a metal spatula to cool on a wire rack.

Cake plate – Dubarry by Crown Devon from the 1930s

Served with Strawberry soup

Royal Doulton – Carnation 1982 – 1998

Lemon Cream Roulade

This cake is a roulade – in Polish – rolada.

I made this cake for my nephew when he came to visit recently as he loves cakes with lemons.

You need to make the sponge for a “Swiss roll” and then fill it with lemon cream.

The sponge cake made using potato flour is very Polish but fresh double cream is not usually found in Polish cookery – soured cream is the norm. Also lemon curd I think of as quite British although I did come across something similar in one of my Polish cooks books. You can make your own lemon curd but I use Sicilian lemon curd from Marks & Spencer as I think this is so lemony.

I made the sponge using the recipe Biszkopt – Sponge Cake using Potato Flour

Or to be easier, use the English Style fat free sponge recipe from

Sponge with Sweet Orange Jam

Use the instructions for how to make and roll the roulade from the first recipe.

Both of these recipes use 2 eggs.

Lemon Cream

I used a large tub of double cream 250ml/300ml – it was more than enough – I did not use it all.

I would think that 200ml of double cream would be enough.

I whisked this up till it was thick and stiff.

I then added 3 -4 tablespoons of lemon curd and whisked again.

Unroll the cold sponge, spread it with the cream and roll up again.

Dredge with icing sugar

Cake Plate H & K Tunstall

Served on – Tuscan China – Bird of Paradise – Hand Painted – 1930s

Sponge with Sour Cherry Jam

Wiśnie is the Polish for sour cherries which I have described in More Duck.

Having made sponge with sweet orange jam I thought I would try this with sour cherry jam – the one I used is from Lidl and is very good with a sharp sour taste. The taste goes really well with the dark chocolate.

I made an English style sponge for ease.

Ingredients

2 eggs

75g caster sugar

75g self raising flour

Method

Pre-heat the oven to GM4 – 180°C

Grease and line the base of a round 18cm diameter baking tin.

In a bowl whisk the eggs and caster sugar until they are pale and creamy.

Gently fold in the flour.

Pour the mixture into the tin and bake for 20 – 25 minutes until golden.

You will need around 3 to 4 tablespoons of jam.

Warm the jam slightly to make it easier to spread.

Sandwich the cake halves together with the jam.

Make a dark chocolate glaze as in mazurek using yeast dough and again in mazurek with oranges.

Here served on Royal Doulton – Counterpoint 1973 – 1987.

Sponge with Sweet Orange Jam

This cake was inspired firstly by mazurek with oranges and also by the very British Jaffa cakes.

Jaffa cakes were first made in 1927 by McVitie & Price (Established in Edinburgh in 1830) – little sponges with orange jelly and a chocolate topping – named after the port (now called Tel Aviv) from where the Victorians and Edwardians imported oranges).

A fat-free sponge cake is cut in half and sandwiched together with a sweet orange jam and then covered with a chocolate glaze or icing.

I have tried out several versions – and made a fat-free sponge using the recipe with potato flour this time using a round 19cm baking tin which has been greased and lined with a circle of greaseproof paper on the base and baked for 20 – 25 minutes at GM4 – 180°C

A quicker version is to use a more English sponge recipe ( this has slightly less volume so a smaller baking tin is used).

Ingredients

2 eggs
75g caster sugar
75g self raising flour

Method

Pre-heat the oven to GM4 – 180°C
Grease and line the base of a round 18cm diameter baking tin.
In a bowl whisk the eggs and caster sugar until they are pale and creamy.
Gently fold in the flour.
Pour the mixture into the tin and bake for 20 – 25 minutes until golden.

Leave to cool and cut the sponge in half

20170804_090748 — Orange & Elderflower Jam from IKEA

Warm the jam slightly to make it easier to spread.
Sandwich the cake halves together with the jam.

Chocolate glaze – using the one from Mazurek – with Yeast Dough

Served on Bramble Rose by Duchess from the 1960s

The more milk chocolate icing below is the one from chocolate babka.

Served here on tea plates by Spencer Stevenson Co Ltd 1948 – 1960, design name not known.

Biszkopt -Sponge Cake

Biszkopt is a fat free sponge cake which means it does not have any butter, margarine or oil in it – just eggs, sugar & flour.

The word originates from the old Italian biscotto & Medieval Latin bis coctus – which means twice baked – though why I do not understand as this sponge is only baked once!

The English word biscuit also has this origin.

This sponge is used to make tort – layer cake 0r gateaux – however as these are usually such large cakes – I have used it for another popular cake in Poland – rolada – which is a roulade – often called a Swiss roll – though I have not been able to find the reason for this Swiss connection.