Simple Sponge Cake

You know, Max, I have no idea when Cymling was replaced by Yellow Crookneck Squash. It’s sort of like mango. Old Southern cookbooks sometimes use the word mango for green peppers. Back then, I guess, most people didn’t know there was a tropical fruit mango.

We have had a week of 90 degree plus temperatures, and the promise of at least another week. The weather people haven’t once mentioned Global Warming. Hey, it’s early August; it is supposed to be hot, hot, hot. In fact, despite “near record temperatures” we haven’t broken a record yet in this hot spell. Everyday they give the record high, and all of them have been from the early 1900’s or the 1930’s. Did we have Global Warming back then too?

The heat does call for some simple meals, like cold salad plates with lots of tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers. For desert: ice cream, sherbert (my Pineapple Daiquiri I sent you earlier in the summer is perfect now in the heat), and a plain cake are good. A Simple Sponge Cake goes well with the ice cream, and it is so much better than the sponge cakes the stores carry in those little packages.

Simple Sponge Cake:

5 eggs
1 cup of sugar
½ teaspoon baking powder
Pinch of salt
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon vanilla (Almond flavoring is also very good)

With a KitchenAid Artisan 5-qt. Stand Mixer, beat the egg yolks and sugar together. Mix and salt, baking powder and flour together and gently stir into the egg yolks along with the vanilla flavoring. Beat the egg white with a KitchenAid 5-Speed Hand Mixer until very stiff. With a spatula, gently fold in the egg whites.

Place in an ungreased tube cake pan. Waxed paper, cut to fit the bottom helps to ease the baked cake out of the pan. Bake in a preheated 325 degree oven for 35 to 45 minutes. Invert the cake pan and let the cake cool completely before removing from the pan. (Cake can also be baked in two loaf pans like the KitchenAid 1-qt Loaf Pans).

Being me, you can also substitute bourbon, rum, or brandy for the vanilla. Each gives a little different flavor.