Vanilla Sponge Cake with Cream Cheese Icing and Chocolate Almond Flakes

I believe in making a cake’s name as long as possible, otherwise how will people know what they’re eating? So if you wanna call this cake the “2-cups-of-sugar-and-4-eggs-and-2-and-a-half-cups-of-flour-blah-blah-blah-cake” go for it! And I should tell you, the first time I made this cake I screwed it up by adding too much milk by accident, but just throw in a little extra flour and it turns out just fine. This cake is really easy and it leaves room for mistakes and improvement. So try it just once, try the variations, come up with your own variations and enjoy.

First things first (or delicious things most delicious)

Icing:

250g cream cheese (a small container)

125g butter (approximately, vary to taste)

5ml vanilla essence (or a big splash)

1 – 1 ½ cup icing sugar (vary to taste, add more if you want your icing sweeter etc.)

Variations:

1 orange (use the juice and the zest)

OR 1 lemon (use very little juice and 1/2 the zest)

Start by mixing the cream cheese and butter together with an electric mixer (or by hand with a spoon) until creamy and smooth. Add the vanilla essence and mix again. Add the icing sugar a spoonful at a time and mix well before adding the next spoonful. Check the taste and consistency after every spoonful that you add because you might want to add more or less than I do according to taste and preference.  Lastly add the zest and juice (if you choose to throw it in) and mix well again. Store in the fridge until you are ready to decorate the cake so that it can stiffen up as much as possible.

Now for the cake…

2 cups (500 ml) sugar

4 eggs

2-1/2 cups (625 ml) all-purpose flour

1 cup (250 ml) milk

3/4 cup (175 ml) vegetable oil

2-1/4 teaspoons (11 ml) baking powder

1 teaspoon (5 ml) vanilla

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Line two 23-cm round cake pans or one 23 x 33 cm rectangular baking pan with parchment paper. Grease the paper and the sides of the pan well.

In a large mixing bowl, with an electric mixer, beat sugar and eggs together until slightly thickened, about 1 minute. Add flour, milk, oil, baking powder, and vanilla and beat for another minute, just until the batter is smooth and creamy. Don't overbeat. Pour batter into the prepared baking pan(s).

Bake in preheated oven for 30 to 40 minutes or until the tops are golden and a toothpick poked into the centre of the layer comes out clean. (A single rectangular pan will take longer to bake than two round ones.) Loosen the sides of the cake from the pan with a thin knife, then turn out onto a rack and peel off the paper. Let cool completely before covering with icing.
My favourite thing to do is to now toast some chopped almonds in a pan for about 1 minute and allow then to cool before sprinkling them over the cake. Also if you want to make it extra special, grate some dark chocolate and sprinkle that all over your cake too. The end result is simple divine!