Stephen Kearney is The Clare Echo’s resident recipe maestro and brings some added flavour to readers with this series called Kearney Cooks. Stephen is a professional baker / pastry chef and more importantly a loveable character who creates easy-to-follow, no fuss recipes which we will publish in video and print.

I started posting videos of my recipes about six months ago on Instagram. This was primarily so I wouldn’t have to write down recipes that people used to message me for when they saw a picture of my food.

This light sponge cake recipe was one of the first recipes I posted about from my home in Kildysart. It is very handy to do and looks class as a centrepiece dessert for a dinner party or afternoon tea. It’s highly adaptable as well and you can fill it with whatever you like really or flavour it whatever which way like too (lemon zest is a great flavouring).

For this simple recipe you will need:
For the Sponge

• 120 g plain flour
• 120 g sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla flavouring

For the filling

• Jam (as much as you want)
• Cream (again as much or as little as you want)
• Fresh fruit, berries work best (whichever fruit you want, as long as it’s not pineapple!)

Method:
Step 1: Horse your eggs, sugar and vanilla into the mixer and mix with the whisk attachment, on high for 15 minutes. If your using a hand mixer you may need to whisk for 20mins.
Step 2: Fold in your flour with a spatula or a spade attachment until everything is combined.
Step 3: Bang it into the oven for a half hour at 180 degrees Celsius.
Step 4: When its out of the oven, remove from the tin and let it cool on a wire rack.
Step 5: Slice that bad boy in half and layer up fresh fruit, jam and cream in the centre. Put the top half of the cake back on and if you like you can put some cream and fruit on top as well.
Step 6: Have a nice slice of cake with some tea and revel in your mastery of the kitchen.

Enjoy, Steve K
If you enjoyed this video, Stephen regularly posts fun recipes on his Instagram profile: @stevekearney37