Five minute sponge recipe

Recipes

James Ramsden
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My sister found this cookbook from 1944 in a charity shop in Edinburgh. It's a beautiful discovery - as good a reflection of wartime bakery as any. Recipes include 'Economy Cake', and 'Butterscotch Tart'. An ambitious 'Roast Duck' has been crossed out in favour of 'Potato Soup'. This recipe comes from the book, although I've tweaked it a little. The sponge originally used dried egg, but I've splashed out and used fresh ones. It also suggests that sponge should be baked in a 'quiet oven', which is a lovely but useless instruction, bless. I also assume that the title refers to prep time, as opposed to baking time, as this actually takes more like 15 minutes to cook.

Ingredients

4 tbsp Self-raising flour
4 tbsp Caster sugar
2 tsp Baking powder
1 Lemon, zest only
1 Egg, lightly beaten
50 ml Milk
1 Small knob of butter to grease ramekins
60 ml Single Cream to serve
1 Handful of berries to serve (optional)

4 tbsp Self-raising flour
4 tbsp Caster sugar
2 tsp Baking powder
1 Lemon, zest only
1 Egg, lightly beaten
1.8 fl oz Milk
1 Small knob of butter to grease ramekins
2.1 fl oz Single Cream to serve
1 Handful of berries to serve (optional)

4 tbsp Self-raising flour
4 tbsp Caster sugar
2 tsp Baking powder
1 Lemon, zest only
1 Egg, lightly beaten
0.2 cup Milk
1 Small knob of butter to grease ramekins
0.3 cup Single Cream to serve
1 Handful of berries to serve (optional)

Details

Cuisine: British
Recipe Type: Cake
Difficulty: Easy
Preparation Time: 5 mins
Cooking Time: 15 mins
Serves: 2

Step-by-step

Preheat the oven to 170°C/Gas 3. Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder and zest together thoroughly in a mixing bowl, then whisk in the egg. Slowly add the milk and whisk until the mixture is smooth, then pour into individual greased ramekins.
Place the ramekins on a baking tray and bake in the oven for 15 minutes.
Remove the ramekins and rest for 5 minutes before serving with cream.
If you wanted to posh the sponges up a bit you could turn them out onto a plate and add a few berries to proceedings. Or, try putting a generous blob of lemon curd in the bottom of each ramekin before adding the sponge mixture, or stir some blueberries through the sponge mixture before baking. You can also use orange zest instead of lemon.

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