You might assume, with my less-than-perfect track record with sponges, that I would be approaching any and all sponge recipes with a certain amount of dread. Oddly, this is not the case. I find I begin nearly all recipes with an optimism that sometimes turns out to be quite unwarranted.
We had another blood drive today, and as per my usual custom, I brought baking to work so we wouldn't be donating on an empty belly. I didn't have a lot of time to spare last night, so I chose a recipe that looked quick and simple: sponge drops (p68). See? There's that optimism I was talking about.
It certainly looked easy enough - you just beat eggs with sugar and vanilla until thick, fold in sifted dry ingredients, then drop small spoonfuls onto a tray and bake. How can you go wrong with that?
Everything seemed to be going quite well at first. I got the eggs and sugar nice and thick (it said 'very thick', so I beat it until it looked thick to me, then kept going a bit longer), folded in the flour and baking powder without difficulty, then dropped teaspoonfuls onto a greased tray.
The spoonfuls of mixture spread out wider than I'd expected, but once they were in the oven, they puffed up a bit. They didn't quite look how I'd expected, but not disastrous either - yet.
It was when I got the first tray out of the oven my problems began. The sponge drops immediately lost what little puffiness they had, and were almost impossible to remove from the tray. I went to line the trays with baking paper instead, but found I'd run out. And tray after tray (because you don't fit many on a tray) came out exactly the same.
When the sponge drops had cooled, they'd turned into sort of wafer-thin, slightly chewy crispy things. A bit weird-looking, but ok. I set them aside to be sandwiched with cream in the morning.
By the morning, my crispy, wafery things were no longer crisp and had gone kinda soft and sticky. I persevered, however, and sandwiched the soggy things together with whipped cream.
Luckily, my workmates are not fussy eaters. Despite the sponge drops' unappealing appearance, the plate cleared fairly quickly when I got them out at morning tea. After all, they didn't taste terrible, just sort of a chewy thing tasting of sugar and cream.
One thing that is both convenient and inconvenient about the Edmonds book is the lack of pictures. I usually defend this feature with the argument that it avoids the disappointment you get when what you make doesn't look like the picture. Of course, in this case, I don't really need a picture to know my sponge drops aren't quite what they should be!
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I missed out, don't forget the GM.
ReplyDeleteI believe there was one left when the GM turned up, but instead of eating it, he made derogatory remarks about it instead?
ReplyDeleteI did prod it and wonder what it was.
DeleteWell trust me, you weren't missing anything spectacular!
Delete