This Orange Passover Sponge Cake recipe is one of those rare Passover desserts that I’d eat any time of year. Citrusy, bright, and flour-free, it is also the perfect dessert for your Seder table.

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This easy kosher for Passover sponge cake recipe is light, airy, and flavorful. It contains just a few basic ingredients, and it is even gluten free!

The classic Passover sponge cake is sadly missunderstood. Sure it can be flabby and uninteresting. But a well-made sponge cake is delicious, delicate, fluffy, and moist all at the same time.

Almond flour and potato starch make a sturdy but still tender base. A splash of orange juice brightens up the flavor. I love to top this Passover sponge cake with strawberries, blueberries, or other fresh fruit and a sprinkling of confectioners’ sugar or whipped cream.

What is the difference between sponge cake and normal cake?

A “normal” cake is contains butter, sugar, eggs, flour, and a leavening agent like baking powder or baking soda.

A sponge cake is contains oil, sugar, flour (or, as in this case, a starch like potato starch), whipped eggs, and sometimes a chemical leavening ingredient, as well.

I use kosher-for-Passover baking powder in my sponge cake. You might wonder how baking powder, a leavening agent, can be kosher for Passover. As with everything, there are differing opinions on this, but foods that are leavened by fermentation (yeast) are chametz. Baking powder is a chemical leavening agent and is therefore not prohibited. Think about it: You can use whipped egg whites as a leavener, too. I use Gefen baking powder, which is cornstarch-free (unlike some other brands that use cornstarch as a carrier) and kosher for Passover.

The whipped eggs keep the cake moist and provide structure. The end result is a sponge-like texture.

FOR THE COMPLETE LIST OF INGREDIENTS WITH QUANTITIES AND DETAILED PREPARATION AND COOKING INSTRUCTIONS, PLEASE SEE THE RECIPE CARD THAT APPEARS AT THE END OF THIS POST. BEFORE YOU SCROLL, CHECK OUT THE USEFUL INFORMATION I’VE INCLUDED IN THE POST BEFORE THE RECIPE CARD.

What ingredients do you need to make this Passover orange cake?

The ingredients for this basic sponge cake are quite simple. Here is everything you need:

• Sugar
• Eggs
• Milk
• Orange juice and zest
• Oil
• Potato starch
• Almond flour
• Baking powder (use Gefen cornstarch-free baking powder for Passover)
• Salt

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How do you make it?

Making this basic sponge cake is simple. Here are the key steps:

1. Preheat the oven and grease the pan.
2. Mix the eggs with sugar, milk, orange juice, andoil, potato starch, almond flour, baking powder, and salt.
3. Transfer the batter to the prepared cake pan and bake.

What makes this a kosher for Passover sponge cake?

Just about any basic sponge cake is free of wheat flour. I make this particular Passover sponge cake with potato starch and almond flour. Both almonds and potato starch are generally widely accepted as “kosher for Passover.”

I like to use Gefen potato starch.

I love the almond flour from Bob’s Red Mill.

Is there a substitute for potato starch?

If you are making this for Passover and plan to share it with others, you’ll obviously want to stick to ingredients that are kosher for Passover. Potato starch is always safe in this regard. But it’s not the only starch that will work in this cake.

Tapioca starch is another option that will work with the recipe. Many people consider tapioca flour or tapioca starch to be kosher for Passover, but you won’t likely find any with a “kosher for Passover” label.

Cornstarch is a suitable substitute for potato starch, but corn is more controversial since many Jews do not consider corn kosher for Passover. If you’re not making this cake for Passover, however, cornstarch will work just fine as a substitute.