Passover (and Gluten-Free) Sponge Cake

As most Jewish Aries and a few Tauruses know, having a birthday during Passover sucks.  You can't even go out for dinner.  And all of the available birthday-style desserts are pretty horrible.  I usually just celebrate early or late when it falls on mine.  It's going to be a couple more years before I have to deal with the scourge, but I thought I'd develop a layer cake recipe for the rest of you April-ites who do have this problem coming up.

I really tried to find something resembling a proper, fluffy layer cake.  The best I could do was a three-ingredient sponge, care of Food52.  I really didn't want to use matzoh cake meal because you can always taste it.  Doesn't matter so much for cookies, but come on, this is a birthday cake.  Found one that uses potato starch instead.

Being a sponge, it needs a little help.  We're going to brush it with flavored simple syrup, layer some frosting and berries in the middle, and frost it with a version of stabilized whipped cream frosting, this one using some butter and potato starch.  I was going to do Swiss Meringue Buttercream, and even bought the butter for it, but really didn't feel like separating two more eggs.  To minimize the whipped cream drooping, I did a naked cake design.

Aside from all the sugar and half a dozen eggs, this is actually a relatively healthy cake.  Much less fat in it than a basic layer cake.  It will resemble a layered shortcake.

This recipe does make a lot of batter.  I got three fluffy 6" layers, and the resulting cake scraped the top of the carrier.  You would get two 2" high 8" or 9" cakes.  Fortunately, the recipe is easy to cut in half if this feels like too much cake for you.

6 eggs, room temperature and separated
2/3 C sugar
1 C potato starch

1.  Prepare 2 8" or 9" round pans by lining bottoms with parchment, greasing with butter, and dusting with cornstarch.  Soak baking strips, if using.  Start preheating oven to 350º.

2.  Beat yolks and 1/3 C of the sugar in a large bowl until pale yellow, smooth, and fluffy.

3.  In a different bowl with clean beaters, beat the egg whites to soft peaks.  I reserved the stand mixer and whisk attachment for this one, and a bowl and hand beater for the yolks.  Drizzle in the remaining 1/3 C sugar and whip to firm peaks.  Check yolks and re-whip if they're starting to un-fluff.

4.  Fold potato starch and whites into the yolks in alternating amounts.  Portion into cake pans.  Place wet baking strips around pans.  Smooth tops and bake about 25 minutes, until springy and pass toothpick test, but not too firm.

5.  Allow to cool in pan 5 minutes, then turn out onto racks to cool completely.  Remove wax paper.

Once cooled, the cakes need a dousing of simple syrup to stay moist.  It's hard to find a KLP extract, so I used rosewater instead and gave this a floral theme.

*2 Tb rosewater (or other scented water)
2 Tb water
1/4 C sugar

1.  Stir all ingredients together in a small pan.  Heat until boiling, and boil just until all sugar grains have dissolved.  Cool to room temperature or store in refrigerator.

2.  Brush onto cakes, allowing each layer to soak in for a few minutes before going at it again.  Use all the syrup.

Frosting

1 Pt whipping cream
1/4 C sugar
*2 Tb butter, room temperature
1 Tb potato starch

1.  Stir together starch and sugar until combined.  This will keep the starch from clumping in the mixer.

2. Whip cream to soft peaks.  Drop in softened butter in tiny pieces, or the cold cream will turn them into chunks.  Drizzle in sugar/potato starch mixture.  This will help to break up those pieces.  Whip to firm peaks, which will happen very quickly once the starch is introduced.

3.  I found out that gel food color is corn syrup based, and had to go find the old-school drops, which are water based.  I wasn't thrilled with the result, and it may be better to decorate with plain white whipped cream frosting.

Makes 1 cake, 8-12 servings

Difficulty rating :-0