Eggless sponge cake recipe: this is an easy and foolproof recipe for an eggless sponge vanilla cake that can form a base to pretty much any party cake or birthday cake you want to put together. My cake recipes usually don’t have a story attached to them. Wait, that’s not true. There is sometimes a story but it’s usually just one line – “I felt like eating cake so I baked one and ate it all”. However, this eggless sponge cake recipe has a slightly longer story behind it.
I have the habit of taking pictures of recipes from cook books to try later. Mostly, these pictures just stay in my phone album, forgotten and hardly ever looked at again but this cake recipe came out of that dungeon one day.
Flashback: I was in Gurgaon some time last year and walked into some random book store that had every single Nita Mehta book every printed. When I first saw it, I thought I would buy half of them and come back but I got so overwhelmed that all I did was browse through half a dozen of them, click a picture of one recipe, and leave without buying any.
Over a year later, this cake happened because I was trying to sort through my phone pics and free up some space on the memory card and I chanced upon this recipe I had taken a picture of ages ago.
Before I get to the recipe, one more thing. I am not a fan of cake recipes with oil instead of butter. I am wary of them, and often insist in my head that I can taste the oil and it’s not good and butter is the food of the Gods and that’s what we should always bake with.
This cake is an exception though. You really can’t taste the oil, even if you are paranoid and dramatic like me.
More delicious cake recipes:
Cake pops
Eggless chocolate sponge cake recipe
Eggless Christmas fruit cake
Cake made in pressure cooker
Eggless Sponge Cake Recipe
Ingredients
- 1.5 cups of all-purpose flour / maida
- 1 cup of plain thick curds / yogurt not sour, at room temperature
- 3/4 cup of sugar
- 1/2 tsp of baking soda
- 1 and 1/4 tsp of baking powder
- 1/2 cup of any neutral oil I used vegetable oil
- 1 tsp of vanilla extract / essence
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F / 180C. Grease an 8" cake pan (or loaf pan) with some butter or oil and set aside.
- Beat the yogurt well removing any lumps and add the sugar to it.
- Beat well and add the baking powder and baking soda to it.
- Beat again and set aside for 5 mins until you see small bubbles on the surface of the mixture.
- To this, add the vanilla extract and oil. Mix well until the ingredients are combined.
- Sift in the flour in three batches into this mixture.
- Gently fold the mixture using a whisk or rubber spatula (or even a wooden spoon) until you see no more streaks of flour.
- Pour into the prepared pan and tap it firmly on the counter top a couple times to get rid of the air bubbles.
- Bake in the pre-heated oven at 350F / 180C for 30-35 mins or until the top turns a golden brown and a tooth pick inserted into the centre of the cake comes out with dry crumbs.
- Cool completely before cutting and serving the eggless sponge cake
Step by Step Eggless Sponge Cake Recipe
1. Preheat oven to 350F / 180C. Grease an 8″ cake pan (or loaf pan) with some butter or oil and set aside.
2. Beat the yogurt well removing any lumps and add the sugar to it.
3. Beat well and add the baking powder and baking soda to it.
Beat again and set aside for 5 mins until you see small bubbles on the surface of the mixture.
4. To this, add the vanilla extract and oil. Mix well until the ingredients are combined.
5. Sift in the flour in three batches into this mixture.
6. Gently fold the mixture using a whisk or rubber spatula (or even a wooden spoon) until you see no more streaks of flour.
7. Pour into the prepared pan…
… and tap it firmly on the counter top a couple times to get rid of the air bubbles.
8. Bake in the pre-heated oven for 30-35 mins until the top turns a golden brown and a tooth pick inserted into the centre of the cake comes out with dry crumbs.
Cool completely before cutting and serving the eggless sponge cake recipe.
Notes:
– To make a vegan eggless sponge cake recipe, replace the yogurt with applesauce. A reader tried this and got great results!
– This recipe can be used to bake basic sponge cakes that can be layered and frosted. You can also bake them into loaves or cupcakes
– If you find that your cake is browning too much on top and not cooked inside, cover the cake pan with aluminium foil and slit it on top a bit to let the heat out
– To make this an eggless chocolate sponge cake, replace 1/3 cup of the flour with cocoa powder and sift them together before adding to the wet mixture
– The cake stores well outside for up to two days and in the refrigerator for up to 5 days
If you want this eggless sponge cake recipe in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Kannada, Marathi, etc please use the Google translate button in the sidebar
Its exactly the same as my Mom makes all the time (back in India) basically because it's eggless. I love its batter and used to lick it away each time she made it :):) I have eaten so much of it all my childhood.
I BAKED THIS CAKE TODAY AND IT CAME OUT SO WELL…but it took me about 40-45 minutes of baking, rest all being same.. I always bake cakes with eggs and sadly my Mom being a vegetarian could never have it until today!!
looks like eggless cakes are best served with nostalgia 🙂 really glad your mom liked it and she could eat it cuz it's eggless.
baking time for this cake actually varies a lot even for me. when i use two different pans, not too different from each other, i need to keep it for different times. this is also a great basic eggless cake, lends itself very well to any kind of dressing up 🙂
It's exactly how my Mom makes it (back in India)..I have had so much of this home-(mummy)-made cake while growing up…I used to lick away its batter all the time…MADE THIS CAKE TODAY AND IT CAME OUT SO WELL..but it took me about 40-45 minutes of baking, rest everything being the same.
We tried to make the cake as per the standard recipe above in Convection Oven at 180 Deg for 35 min after preheating. The cake did n't come out good. It was pasty with top crest brownish with charred ring around it. Bottom of the bowl was pasty and stuck to the bowl
The consistency of the baked cake was pasty with minimum rise in volume.
We would like to know whether is it due to
* using Ghee instead of Vegetable oil?,
* using 1300ml Borosil glass bowl (having depth about 5")
* using thick curd instead of yogurt?
* using Eno instead of sodim bi carbonae
Please advice:
# Can we use shallow dinner ware (metallic container with coating)for baking, if the glass bowl is deep?
# Can make the batter consistency slightly flow able rather than sticky and thick?
# Can we avoid using vanilla essence and have any substitute for this?
My first thought is that your cake was under-baked. Glass bowls, in my experience, take longer than metal to bake something in. I am not sure what dinnerware you are referring to with coating, etc, so can't say for sure if it can be used or not.
Substitutions of any kind will alter the outcome in some way or the other. I have never tried any of the substitutions you mentioned but would urge you to try oil and soda instead of the subs you've mentioned. The yogurt is fine, doesn't matter.
If your batter was thick, that means it needs more liquid. Try oil next time instead of ghee?
You can avoid vanilla if you woud like but there's no real substitute for that in this cake. This is a vanilla sponge cake. You can try 2 tbsp lemon juice or 1/4 cup orange juice for a different flavour.
yes, that could be the reason for uneven baking
Is the depth of the glass bowl matter for the cake to form? ( I mentioned 5" earlier)
i also had the same ppoblem as murali mentioned. i followed the same recepie of Nagalekshmi only except glass bowl and curd instead of yogurt. either of this might be the problem.
How to use the above recipe while baking in Microwave oven? Can we use micro wave safe plastic bowl?
murali, you can't bake this cake recipe in a microwave. if you have a convection oven, then you can but using plastic bowl is not advisable. either metal or glass will work fine for cake recipes in a microwave oven
Thank you very much for the reply
How to use this recipe to make cake in microwave oven ? Can we use plastic bowl ( micro-safe)?
I too bake this cake, it always comes out perfect, I am so just like you, I was laughing reading your write-up, I do it here in UK, Most of the books have non-vegetarian recipes, so If I like something I take a photo of it, it is my daughter who does it for me, while I hold in book stores, thank God!, nobody has said anything so far, I also feel like I have stolen something..,Beautiful clicks, I love the last one, it has come out very well.
Cake looks so soft and moist.loved this eggless version..will try for sure
Just made it! It came out Super! This one is for my mom… who doesn't eat egg and butter 🙂
I love the addition of yogurt in cake, makes it really velvety smooth. This is a must try for eggless sponge!
If this were a manirathnam movie, this would be Alaipayuthey…and that scene with the beautiful background..the medical camp one..so gorgeous…I mean the cake.