Gluten-Free Cream Cheese Sponge Cake

Bringing bounce to the gluten-free sponge canon

I am certain you have never had such a springy, fluffy, voluptuous gluten-free cake in your life. I discovered this cake (or did it discover me?) in my tumultuous journey towards perfecting my genoise recipe, in the throes of ratio comparisons and anti-deflation strategising. It’s actually shocking how tall and squishy this sponge is. I say this with my chest in telling you that no one will have the slightest clue this is gluten-free. Tried and tested, it has deceived many.

This cake makes for a fantastic snacking cake, trifle sponge, and vehicle for whipped cream, syrups/sauces and fresh fruits. You could turn this into a chic Victoria Sponge situation, filled with jam and dusted with icing sugar. You could drizzle it with a rich chocolate sauce. You could sleep on its inviting boing and wake up to breakfast in bed.

Overview

First we’ll make our ‘wet’ mix by heating cream cheese and milk, adding egg yolk and oil, blending in xanthan gum (if your mix doesn’t include any), and adding flour to this mix. Then we’ll make a simple meringue with the egg whites and combine the cream cheese/flour mix with the meringue before baking the batter in unlined tins. We’ll immediately invert the cakes once they’re baked.

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Recipe

Makes two 6-inch cakes, 700g batter OR one 6-cup tube pan (Tip 1)

Ingredients:

• 110g full-fat cream cheese

• 70g caster sugar (i)

• 63g whole milk

• 50g neutral oil

• 1/2 tsp (2.5g) fine sea salt

• 1.5 tsp (7g) vanilla extract

• 2g (slightly heaping 1/2 tsp) xanthan gum (if your flour blend doesn’t include any)

• 6 large eggs (350g in-shell weight) (Tip 2)

• 1/2 tsp vinegar

• 90g caster sugar (ii)

• 112g GF flour blend [see notes for homemade blend]

• Serving suggestion: thick fruity syrup, softly whipped cream and fresh fruit

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 175°C (350°F) conventional with a rack in the center. If your oven only has a fan setting, set it to 160°C (325°F).

2. In a heat-safe bowl, combine 110g cream cheese, 70g sugar (i) and 63g milk. Heat over a bain-marie (ie. over a saucepan with an inch of simmering water with the bowl nested on top, not touching the water), whisking frequently, until melted and smooth. Remove from the heat and let cool for a few minutes.

3. Separate 6 large eggs, letting the whites fall into your stand mixer bowl and add the yolks to this cream cheese mixture. Whisk the yolks into the cream cheese, then add 50g oil, 1/2 tsp salt, and 1.5 tsp vanilla. Add slightly heaping 1/2 tsp xanthan gum if your blend doesn’t include any and use an immersion blender until very smooth (Tip 3). Ensure xanthan gum has not gripped onto sides of bowl or blender and if so, scrape into mixture and blend until there are no clumps. If you can see any clumps, strain through a fine sieve. Sift in the flour in two batches and whisk until smooth after each addition. If your blend already includes xanthan gum, simply add the flour and whisk until smooth.

4. Now let’s make the meringue. Add 1/2 tsp vinegar to the egg whites in your mixer bowl, then mix with the whisk attachment on medium until foamy. Slowly add 90g sugar (ii) a spoonful at a time over 3-5 minutes. Once all the sugar has been added, continue whipping on medium speed until the meringue holds medium-firm peaks. The meringue should just flop over on itself when lifting the whisk, without holding a sharp peak. If you under-whisk, the batter will deflate more quickly and your cakes will bake shorter and denser. If you over-whisk, it will be very difficult to fold the cream cheese/flour into the stiff meringue. So check often to ensure you have mixed enough and have not overshot the stiffness. Transfer the meringue into a wide mixing bowl, preferably a very large one and preferably transparent.

5. Add a large scoop of meringue to the cream cheese/flour mixture and whisk it in to loosen the mixture. Scrape this mixture over the meringue in your bowl. Use a large whisk to gently combine the mixture with the meringue by scooping the whisk beneath the meringue and shaking the whisk as you exit (Tip 4). We’re trying to retain as much air as possible. If you’ve made a genoise, the same method applies here. When a few streaks of meringue remain, switch to a flexible spatula and continue folding until the batter is smooth and uniform in colour. The transparent bowl is helpful here because I like to lift the bowl and check to see if there are any unmixed portions along the bottom and sides.

6. Divide the batter evenly into two ungreased, unlined aluminum 6-inch cake tins. It is essential that the tins are not non-stick. I know it feels wrong to pour cake batter directly into tins, but the cake needs to cling to the sides as it bakes and will need to continue clinging while it hangs upside down. Do not even line the bottom, as this will cause the bottom of the cake to collapse from the inside as it cools. There should be 350g of batter in each tin. Drop the tins 30-60cm (1-2 feet) above the counter to encourage larger bubble to pop. Gently run a skewer in a figure 8 pattern through the batter to distribute the batter evenly and pop bubbles inside.

7. Bake for 25 minutes and begin checking. The cake should be deep golden and a skewer inserted near the center will come out with little bits of soft cake, but will not be wet. Mine usually take 28 minutes.

8. Remove from the oven and immediately turn the cakes over onto a wire rack. If the cake has risen beyond the rim of the tin, that’s okay. The wire will press into the cake, but you will still achieve the total height of your cake tin.

9. Allow the cakes to cool to room temperature before running an offset spatula around the perimeter of the tin, gently scooping at the base to encourage the cake to unstick from the bottom. You can be a little rough with this cake as it quickly springs back. Once you feel the cake loosen inside the tin, invert again and give a gentle shake until the cake falls out. Use a serrated knife to slice the cake into wedges.

Storage: Cake will keep at room temperature, in a sealed container, for about 3 days. Cake can be frozen for up to one month and thawed at room temperature, though the flavour and texture will be slightly less yummy.

Serving suggestion: Create a syrup with 100g sugar and 100g water and cook on high in a saucepan until the bubbles become slower and syrup becomes quieter (indicating the water has largely evaporated). Add ~100g of fruit puree, vanilla, a pinch of salt and/or any other flavourings. Whip cream with a little salt and honey until very soft peaks. Serve a slice of sponge cake with whipped cream, fresh fruit and a generous drizzle of thickened, cooled syrup.

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Tip 1: Halve to make one 6 inch cake, though immersion blending may become difficult with smaller quantities. Bake 620g in an 8-inch tin. For a 9-inch tin, increase recipe by 1.12 and bake all in one tin. I have not tested this recipe in tins larger than 6 inches. I expect them to bake similarly, but the interior may collapse slightly due to the greater distance from a surface to cling to.

You can also bake this in a tube pan, though I haven’t tested this.

Tip 2: Eggs are in-shell weight here because I find it easier to ensure my eggs are correctly sized before separating, rather than cracking, weighing, and then plucking the yolks out (something that is difficult if using room temp eggs, as I do). If using liquid whites and yolks, this batch size calls for 204g whites and 84g yolk.

Tip 3: It may be possible to blend using a regular blender, but I would scale up this entire cream cheese/yolk mixture by at least 10% to account for loss and ensure this mixture weighs 389g before adding flour.

Tip 4: Here is a video to better illustrate this method of mixing:

Notes for Nerds:

*Update: I now prefer to make my own blend with xanthan gum distributed in the mix, rather than separately adding it and necessitating blending it.

Do not bake this cake in a sheet tray. Only the edges will cling to the sides and thus the center will collapse and be dense.

I have not tried making this into a layer cake. I have served this as a trifle, soaked with syrup and layered with buttercream and fresh berries and it was absolutely delicious. A perfect park cake, especially because it can be thrown into a lidded container and passed around for chowing down. I imagine a Victoria Sponge, simply sliced in half, lightly filled with buttercream and jam, and dusted with icing sugar, would work well.

I recommend purchasing a scale that detects tenths of grams, because xanthan gum is both very ‘packable’ (ie the quantity can change significantly if compressed or if scooped while fluffy) and very potent, meaning small differences in quantity can impact your bakes. I use a JSR-150 for weighing gum/salt/baking powder/etc. I purchased it from BakeryBits for £17.

I used Freee Plain White Flour here. If making your own blend, as I recommend, combine or sift together the following:

• 36g superfine white rice flour

• 20g superfine brown rice flour

• 20g cornstarch

• 17g tapioca starch

• 3g potato starch

• 16g powdered milk

• 2g (slightly heaping 1/2 tsp) xanthan gum

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I hope you give this cake a try and are as dazzled by its bounce as I am.

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Next week I will share my recipe for Pecan Brittle and Maple Cookies.