Hot Milk Sponge Cake

*Coffee version shown above

4 eggs, room temperature
1 3/4 cups sugar

2 Tbsp oil

1 3/4 cups flour

1/2 tsp salt

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 cup milk

1/4 cup butter

2 tsp vanilla

Grease and flour pans (3 x 8 inch rounds or 9 x 13 rectangle). Line with parchment on the bottom if making layer cakes. Preheat oven to 325 F.

Mix together dry ingredients and set aside. 

Cut the butter into chunks and put it into a microwave safe bowl with the milk and set aside. 

Mix eggs and sugar with an electric mixer til thick, light coloured, and aerated. This usually takes at least 2-3 minutes on high speed. If you don't know what texture you're looking for, use a timer set for 3 minutes. 

Microwave milk until butter is fully melted and mixture is hot. Add vanilla and other flavourings to hot milk. Add to beaten eggs in a steady stream while mixing on low to combine. 

Add dry ingredients and mix on low until just combined. You can also fold in by hand with a spatula. This takes longer to get it to a uniform batter, but deflates the air bubbles less. 

Bake in preheated oven until toothpick comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs, about 25-30 minutes for rounds, 40-50 minutes for a 9x13. These take longer to bake than you may think, due to the low temp. 

Notes: In the pictures above I added 2 heaping tsp of instant coffee to flavour and baked in three 8 inch round layer tins. They took almost 30 minutes to bake. 

I've tried many different versions of this recipe, with different mixing methods. Some have you mix in the flour mixture to the eggs/sugar first and then add the hot milk mix, instead of adding the hot milk to the eggs first like we do here. Both versions turn out fine. I like the texture of doing the flour first slightly more, but adding the milk first is more reliable for getting a properly homogenous batter, and I recommend doing that until you're very familiar with how the batter should feel. 

You can also scale this recipe up and down easily. Don't worry too much about precise scaling. The original recipe ratios are 4 eggs: 1 cup milk: 2 cups sugar: 2 cups flour OR 3 eggs: 3/4 cup milk: 1 1/2 cups sugar; 1 1/2 cups flour, etc. After trial and error, I cut back the flour/sugar a little, and I mess around with the butter/oil amounts all the time. My point is - this is a pretty forgiving recipe, and as long as you keep basic ratios the same, it will be fine.