Old-Fashioned Sponge Cake with Thousand-Leaf Pattern (Hot-Oil Method)
Ingredients
- 8 (55-60g each) eggs
- 110 milk
- 75 corn oil (heated to 70C)
- 145 cake flour
- 90 white sugar
- 10 cornstarch (optional)
- 5 lemon juice
- 2 cocoa powder
Instructions
- Separate egg whites from yolks; place egg whites in the freezer until ice crystals form. Sift cake flour into a bowl. Heat oil to 70-80C, then pour into the flour and stir quickly to combine. The hot-oil method makes the sponge cake extra soft and light!
- Pour in the milk and mix well. Add the yolks and continue mixing until smooth – when you lift the whisk, the batter should flow in a steady ribbon.
- Start whipping the egg whites. Squeeze in lemon juice. Beat on high speed until large bubbles form, add 1/3 of the sugar. Continue beating until small bubbles appear, add another 1/3 of the sugar. Beat on medium speed until streaks form, add the remaining sugar. Switch to low speed to refine the texture, scrape the bowl sides, and whip until stiff peaks form.
- Fold 1/3 of the meringue into the yolk batter until evenly combined, then pour the mixture back into the remaining meringue and fold gently until uniform. Pour the batter into the mold. Mix 30g of batter with cocoa powder until smooth, transfer to a piping bag, and snip a small opening. Hold the bag at a 45-degree angle and pipe long stripes.
- Take a chopstick and run it perpendicular to the stripes to create the thousand-leaf pattern.
- Preheat the oven. Bake at 145C for 60 minutes on the lower-middle rack. For the last 10 minutes, increase the temperature by 10C and turn on the convection fan. For ovens with tight seals, insert a wooden stick wrapped in foil to keep the door slightly ajar.
- Remove from the oven and tap the pan to release trapped heat. If you did not line with parchment, let it cool to hand-warm, place parchment on top, unmold, flip over, and cool completely before slicing. If you did line with parchment, simply lift the cake out and cool on a wire rack.
- Slice and enjoy! Store sealed in the refrigerator.
- Denser and more moist than a chiffon cake.
