Slice of Granny's Passover Citrus Sponge Cake
Substituting fine cake matzoh meal, potato and tapioca starch for cake flour will make an airy, light Passover sponge cake.
Can sponge cake be made by hand?
Here is a Passover-worthy cake to bake during the coming week. My Iraqi Granny made the most incredibly light sponge cakes. Just look at this beauty, freshly baked and coming out of the oven. How did she do it? First, she separated the yolks from the whites. With no electric mixer or rotary egg beater, she whipped the whites into billowy clouds in a large platter with a fork (!) and carefully incorporated them into the yolks. Of all the many things Granny baked, it’s her sponge cakes that I remember most. This happened in Shanghai, where my father, mother, brother, and I lived with Granny in a one-room apartment during World War II.
Greg's additions of citrus.
I’ve tweaked Granny’s recipe just a bit to include jolts of orange and lemon zest. Mashing or pounding the finely grated zest with some granulated sugar extracts as much of the natural oils as possible, giving the cake its special taste. And here's another thing I do: I do NOT preheat the oven. I find puff cakes such as sponge and angel food cakes rise much better when put into a cold oven and then the oven is turned on. To make this cake when it's not Passover, please see the NOTE at the end of the recipe.