Salter's Great British sponge cake challenge

To celebrate the bake off season, Salter challenged me to make a sponge cake and sent me some Salter kitchen tools to trial when making the cake. I received some very swish digital kitchen scales (Salter Aquatronic Electronic Scale, £26.99, Argos), a whisk (Heston Blumenthal Precision- Professional Whisk, £8.99, Amazon) and some funky and functional double ended spatulas (Heston Blumenthal Precision- Multipurpose Spatulas, £14.99, Amazon).

Here's the recipe I was asked to use :

Great British sponge cake

Ingredients

· 125g/4oz butter or margarine, softened

· 125g/4oz caster sugar

· 2 medium eggs

· 125g/4oz self raising flour

· Jam

· Whipped cream

· Icing sugar

Method :

Heat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Line two 18cm/7in cake tins with baking parchment.

Measure your ingredients with the Salter Aquatronic Electronic Scale.

Use the Heston Multipurpose Spatula to cream the butter and the sugar together until pale.

I'd never used a spatula for creaming before but it works really well, especially as the Heston Multipurpose Spatula is firm enough to get some force behind it but flexible enough to get right up against the side of the bowl. I'll never use a fork for creaming again !

Beat in the eggs using the Heston Precision whisk.

 Sift over the flour and fold in using the Heston Multipurpose Spatula.

The mixture should be of a dropping consistency; if it is not, add a little milk. Divide the mixture between the cake tins and gently spread out with the Heston Spatula.

Pass on the spatula to a willing kitchen helper/licker. (This step wasn't in the official recipe !)

Bake for 20-25 minutes. The cakes are done when they’re golden-brown and coming away from the edge of the tins. Press them gently to check – they should be springy to the touch. Allow to stand for 5 minutes before turning on to a wire rack to cool.

Sandwich the cakes together with jam and whipped cream. Dust the cake with icing sugar

The kitchen equipment was faultless. My only gripe was that the recipe only produced enough for one cake and I didn't have time to start over again so I cut mine in half, which gave a very flat end result and also caused the middle to crumble. It still tasted lovely though.

Disclosure : I received some kitchen equipment in order to take part in the challenge.

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