Homemade Sponge Cake Recipe, Chiffon Cake- Gluten Free

Today is my 24th birthday, and my husband, Mike's 26th birthday. Yes, we share a birthday, and it allows us to be frugal by only celebrating our birthday once instead of on two separate days. Ok, I'm only partially kidding- because its both of our birthdays, we do try to do something nicer than if it were only one of ours. No, we haven't "really" celebrated yet because my babysitter isn't available on Saturdays, but we'll probably do something later on in the week, have a nice date, probably, which I'll post about when it happens.

What we did do so far was have a yummy cake, no, not frosted, in honor of our birthdays. We're not big cake or desert people here. Real food is yummy enough- why make junk? It just means that you'll eat it, and if you're eating proper meals you don't generally need to be snacking between them. And if you eat a satisfying meal, there's no need to eat more after the meal is over.
Anyhow, all that is why just a plain cake is something special around here, and I don't feel the need to add more sugar and such to make a frosting when its just myself, my husband, and my kids enjoying it, even if it is in honor of our birthday.

Here's a really yummy recipe for a cake my mom gave me, and it calls for no specialty gluten free ingredients or any hard to find ingredients, so that makes it pretty cheap for a gluten free cake, and you can make it even if you have no dietary restrictions because it isn't one of my wacky gf recipes calling for teff flour or xanthan gum or millet flour or almond flour- these are all things most people have around the house anyhow.

My mom calls it sponge cake. My friend, Robin, who has been baking longer than I have been (her son is just a  year or two younger than I am) said that this isn't a sponge cake, its a chiffon cake, as it has more ingredients than a simple sponge cake.
Me? What do I know? I'm just the chef. So long as it tastes good, I don't care WHAT it is called. I just put both names in the title so that people searching for either one on google can come across this post. I just call it yummy cake.

This recipe does involve separating eggs and beating them, but don't let that scare you. This was the first time I ever made a "sponge cake". Ok, maybe not- I might have made an angel food cake when I was in my early teens with the help of my mom, but this was the first time in my married life that I tried to do it. And I didn't fail it. So if I could do it, so can you.

Ok, before I give the recipe though, I just want to mention that your cake pan needs to be ungreased, and you don't want to be doing this with a glass cake pan, as the last bit of the instructions involves dropping the cake pan on the floor from a foot and a half up, and you don't want to be doing that with a glass baking pan. Unless you're asking for trouble. (So yes, that's why you see an aluminum pan up there. Because my baking pans are glass.) No, I have no clue why exactly you're supposed to do this, or how it works, but somehow it's supposed to stop your cake from "falling".
Also, when you beat your eggs, you need to do it in a container that is completely grease free, as fat will make the egg whites not beat properly and your cake won't work. So make sure your bowl is very clean before you do it. Oh, and do it in a deep bowl unless you want things to splatter all over. (I beat mine in a pitcher, actually.)

Sponge/Chiffon Cake Recipe

Ingredients:
6 large eggs
1.5 teaspoons baking powder
1.5 cups corn starch or potato starch
1.5 cups of sugar, divided
2 tablespoons oil- I used sunflower
6 tablespoons orange juice
3 teaspoons vanilla sugar

Instructions:
1. Divide the eggs.

2. Beat the egg whites until stiff and forming peaks. I use the whisk attachment on my blender stick for this.

3. Add 3/4 cup of sugar to the egg whites and beat until stiff.

4. Put all the rest of the ingredients into another bowl and mix well. It'll be thick and not so easy to mix. I ran out of orange juice so used some water with some orange extract and it worked fine.

5. Fold together the egg whites and the rest of the batter until there are no more clumps of yellow and no white streaks. This'll take a bit of time. Folding it means instead of mixing it around in a circle, you try to mix the stuff in sideways, kind of doing a vertical circle instead of horizontal if that makes any sense.

6. Pour the cake batter into a deep 9 by 13 pan or two smaller pans, again, not glass.

7. Put in an oven preheated to 375 and bake. If using one larger pan, bake for 50 minutes, if using a smaller pan, bake for 35-40 minutes.

8. When done, remove from oven and if using an aluminum or silicon pan, drop on the floor from 1.5 feet up, twice. If using a metal baking pan, drop from only 1 foot up.

Enjoy!

P.S. I reckon this'll work with arrowroot starch or tapioca starch but I can't promise it, but if you try it out that way and it works, please let me know.

Have you ever made any sponge cakes or any cakes that involved separating egg whites? Does this seem harder than yours or easier? 
Do you carry all these ingredients in your house? Would you try it out, even if you weren't gluten free?
Do you generally serve desert in your house? Would it be a birthday cake in your house if it didn't have frosting?

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