how does this compare to other spongecakes

Joined Feb 18, 2009
i have the julia childs french cookbooks and a modern joy of cooking. there are many sponge ckaes and i am not a very expeirenced baker. i like the flavor profile of this caribbean cake and i just wondered how the techniques and ingredient ratios compared to the classic french, english and germanic or central european sponge cakes.

here is the recipe

Marble Cake | Simply Trini Cooking

is this standard?

can it be tweaked?
Joined Feb 18, 2009
i have the same questions for this haitian cake. I have had it before. it is moist and somewhat dense like a banana bread. It doesnt remind me of the "birthday cake" texture. It also doesnt have the dense and moist charecteristic of french or swiss ckaes with lots of ground nuts. (thsi is anothr great cake quality)

is that correct based on this recipe?

I suppose i would be very interested in the different cake styles, the birthday cake, this one, tender and moist, the swiss style with ground nuts, more dense, still moist, there are other styles too, with differences in crumb,and spring.

but im interested in "when u want it to be a certain way, how do you get that, and what is the ebst way to get it there"

Haitian Cake


  • 2 sticks of butter
  • 2 cups of flour
  • 1 cup of sugar
  • 5 eggs, at room temperature
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • Pinch of salt
  • 1 tbsp of vanilla extract
  • 3/4 cup milk (boil a cup of milk with several sticks of cinnamon and let reduce to 3/4 cup, and let cool, and discard the cinnamon sticks)

  1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Grease two 8 1/2 round pans.
  2. In an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar. Mix until the mixture is light, fluffy and smooth. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each egg.
  3. In a mixing bowl, combine the remaining 2 cups of flour, baking powder and salt. With the machine running, add 1/4 cup of the flour mixture at a time, gradually add milk. Mix well. Pour the filling into the prepared pan.
  4. Bake for about 50 minutes, or until the center is firm. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack for 30 minutes. Use any flavor of icing
Joined Aug 13, 2006
I always read that sponge cakes (at least in american english - not so in british) are cakes where beaten egg is the only leavening and there is no fat. Flour, sugar, eggs,
Joined Feb 18, 2009
Like an angel food cake. I have heard that too. There are some cakes I have made called sponge cake that hand no fat outside of yoks and then stiffly beaten in egg whites.

so what kind of cakes are these? their texture is not like hte birthday cake texture. although i love the birthday cake, their texture is different. more like banana bread or a pumpkin or poppyseed cake, american style. (not dense yet moist but more crumbly like swiss style, if u know what i mean)

whats the secret and science behind cakes and breads, so that when we see a recipe we know what is going on precisely. and we know all the tricks and how to make sure the recipe turns out well.
Joined Dec 2, 2009
You are a line cook with one foot in the pastry pantry, eh? This is a butter cake. Beat in eggs one at a time, only until incorporated. Decrease your drys to 3 and beat on med only until you see the "waves" of batter coming off the sides and flowing to the beaters. (this is assuming you are using a stand mixer...which you will need eventually, keep checking Amazon for KA's on sale) Stop. A couple deep "folds" with a decent rubber spatula to make sure everything from the bottom of bowl is incorporated. Reasoning...this is a cake and doesn't need a developed gluten, a lot of mixing will toughen your end product. In the link...see how there is a hump in the middle? I suspect all that manipulation adding colors has worked too much air into the batter. Just my uneducated guess.:smokin
* the answer to your baking science questions...this will come with time and experience. Maybe while you are on the line you can look around for a PT bakery job...or a mentor.
Joined Dec 2, 2009

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