Made the Hot Milk Sponge Cake over the weekend to have with seasonal strawberries and freshly whipped cream. It is a winner! My sister, who doesn’t like desserts (weird, I know)) loved this cake. I am not a baker. In fact, I had not baked any cake for more than five years. I recently decided, however, that I needed to use whatever cooking and baking skills I had developed over the years or loose them. So, following the recipe carefully, it was a total success; and the taste is lovely with or without additions like fresh fruit, etc.

I love this cake but I think you’re mistaken about why using hot milk produces a moister, more tender cake. Flour consists of two hydrophilic components, starch and protein (gliadin and glutenin which, when mixed together with a liquid, make gluten). When a liquid is mixed into flour, both of these components compete for the available water. Starches absorb water which later, in the presence of heat (in the oven), convert the starch to a gelatin, permanently binding the water, making a moister cake. The proteins gliadin and glutenin, bind to the water more quickly and aggressively, which activates them so that they will stick to each other to create gluten bonds (autolyse). At room temperature, starch absorbs water much more slowly than do the proteins, which happily make as much gluten as the batter is mixed, trapping more water, out-competing the starch. To achieve the goal of a moist, tender cake, you need to minimize the amount gluten produced while maximizing the amount of moisture available to and absorbed by the starch. What I think has been overlooked is that the absorptive ability of starch increases dramatically with the temperature of the liquid. This is where the hot milk comes in. If you add hot milk to the batter, alternating with additions of flour (not to tge eggs), the starch can absorb more water, faster, thereby limiting the amount of water available for gluten production. The starch can now out-compete the proteins for the water, resulting in a moist, tender cake. Another way to think of it is that it’s a proto-“Tangzhong”, which is now widely used in bread-making. I’ve also used this technique in making your Coconut Cashew (Sanwin Makin) Cake. Instead of producing a thin, watery batter, barely capable of supporting floating cashew pieces before baking, by adding steaming coconut milk to the dry ingredients and mixing with a whisk attachment on my stand mixer, I end up with a thick batter and a much moister cake. Anyway, for what it’s worth, that’’s my opinion. Thanks for letting me share it.

The recipe was perfect. Thank you.

I actually am one of those people who loves angel food cake so this was like finding an elevated version of that. I think it's better, actually, so this will now replace my usual recipe for angel food cake. THANK YOU!

Everyone loved the fluffy texture and wonderful citrus flavour. Not overly sweet either.