Orange sponge cake

How to prepare a homemade orange cake . The four quarters is one of the most classic cupcakes in English dessert recipes .

It is so called because 4 ingredients are used in the same proportion: eggs, sugar, flour and butter.  Each of the ingredients represents a quarter of the cake.

This dessert, like the Brittany cake, originates from the Bretagne region (in France). This region is characterized by the production and consumption of butter, especially salty butter, an art and one of the suppliers of this ingredient for everyone.

This type of delicious sponge cake has different names depending on the area they prepare it. You have already read French, but throughout Latin America they call it panqué or ponqué and in English-speaking countries, pound cake .

This cake is very similar to the American cake and you can see a very similar one in its famous banana bread , which is one of the cakes with the brownie most eaten in the US.

A cake that we have been preparing at home for years and that entered my kitchen to take advantage of the citrus season. In this case it goes with the zest of some oranges, but you can add tangerines, clementines, even a touch of lime.

It is perfect to serve with a cup of tea or coffee for breakfast or snack. You will like it for that orange aroma that floods the entire kitchen and is very, very fluffy. I hope you like it and prepare it at home.

Preparation of the orange sponge cake base

1. We wash the oranges very well and grate them without reaching the white part, which can become bitter. We reserve.
2. To make it easier for you to prepare this cake and that it turns out perfect, we must have all the ingredients at room temperature and prepared.
3. The butter has to be “to the point of ointment” , soft but not liquid. If we have everything at hand we will not forget anything and thus the end result will be delicious.
4. In a large bowl beat the butter and sugar until we have a fluffy and soft dough. Once this consistency is obtained, add the eggs one by one and a pinch of salt. The mixture has to be smooth and creamy.
5. We add to the previous mixture the chemical yeast with the previously sifted flour and the zest of the oranges.
6. Beat with the mixer until there are no lumps.
7. We can cover the chosen mold with a wax paper or oven paper or the simplest option to prevent the cake from sticking: we spread the mold with butter. After spreading it, we can sprinkle flour on top, removing the excess with a few flicks of the wrist, or add white sugar or icing sugar if we are going to make it with chocolate (so that the white flour that would be ugly is not visible).

Baking and final presentation of the orange sponge cake

1. Pour the previous mixture into the chosen mold and just before putting it in the oven, add the nuts with a spoon. We have floured these before so that they do not fall to the bottom of the cake.
2. Baking is perhaps the most important thing in a cake, each oven is a world, especially now that most have millions of different functions that we use little or do not know what they are for.
3. In my mother’s house we have the simplest, warmth up and down of all life. Once you control the oven in your house well, surely there is no recipe that will resist you.
4. We preheat the oven to 200º C for 10 minutes before adding the cake.
5. For this type of biscuits the best thing is heat up and down, it does not occur to you to open the oven until after 35 minutes. If your kitchen is very cold, don’t take it out suddenly, open the oven door and leave it in for a couple of minutes.
6. Sudden changes in temperature do not usually go well with this type of pastry.
7. We put it in the oven at 180º C for 50-55 minutes until the surface is well browned. The last 10 minutes we cover it with a piece of aluminum foil so that it does not burn us.
8. Puncture with a fork from time to time to see if the cake is done, the fork should always come out clean.
9. If we want us to have a sweet crust, when the cake takes 1/2 hour in the oven, add two tablespoons of sugar through the cracks on the surface. We leave the rest of the time in the oven with normal cooking.
10. Carefully remove from the mold and let it cool down. We only have to cut a good piece to take with our favorite drink.

You can see all the step by step photos of this orange cake recipe  in this album.

Tips and tricks for a perfect orange cake

• It is a very easy cake that takes about 10 minutes to prepare the cream. And another 50 minutes of cooking in which the oven will work.
• It is based as it says above 4 ingredients. But many people add frosty fruits, chocolate chips, raisins, pieces of your favorite nuts … imagination to power.
• It is best to store it at room temperature in an airtight container. Because if you put it in the fridge it will be hard. To prevent the cake from drying out, try to protect it from the air. If you have crystal bells they are ideal and if you cannot wrap it perfectly with silver foil. In this way it lasts about three days juicy.
• Use a mold that is similar in size to prevent the dough from slipping out during cooking. This type of cake is perfect, also very easy to remove from the mold.
• As in all recipes, I advise you to use top quality ingredients. From eggs to oranges. These ingredients will make a difference.
• In the baking for biscuits it is better not to use the air function because it dries the cake more.
• If you want it lighter, we can substitute wheat flour for fine corn flour, the so-called cornstarch. So it will also be suitable for celiacs, since it does not contain gluten.
• A perfect sponge cake for breakfasts and snacks, something sweet and time consuming. Of those that always come out well, fluffy, with a great flavor and that is perfect for those who start in the kitchen.