Regarding the origins of sponge cake, you go back in the mid 1700s when the Genoese cook Giobatta Cabona, sent to Spain in the wake of the Marquis and Ambasador Dominic Pallavicini, on the occasion of a banquet, presented a cake of incredible lightness that took the name of Sponge cake to honor the Spanish court.

Ingredients:

75 gr of flour
1 pinch of salt
1 vanillin packet
150 gr of sugar
75 gr of potato starch
5 eggs

Sponge cake

Preparation:

Put the eggs, sugar and a pinch of salt in a bowl and, with the help of a mixer, whip all for at least 15 minutes, always in the same direction, until you obtain a frothy and swollen mixture of yellow color.

Now add the flour and potato starch mixed together (if you want even the vanillin), pouring them into the mixture through a sieve to avoid to make lumps.
Mix everything with a wooden spoon until mixture is smooth.
Grease a rounded baking pan with butter and flour and pour the mixture in the center of the mold.
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and bake your sponge cake for at least 35-40 minutes without ever opening the oven in the first half hour of cooking.

Passed the 40 minutes, pierce the center of the cake with a toothpick: if the dough will stick to the toothpick, then it means that the sponge is not yet cooked.
Once cooked, let cool for 10 minutes in the oven off to avoid of deflating the cake.

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