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Dessert

Spunge Cakes

A cake made with eggs, hot water, volatile salts, sugar, flour, and seeds, baked at 400°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Spunge Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs until frothy.

  2. Dissolve the volatile salts in the hot water and let it cool.

  3. Mix the cooled water with the beaten eggs and beat for 10 minutes.

  4. Add the grated sugar and flour, and beat well together.

  5. Fold in a few seeds.

Bake

  1. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until done.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten eggs trap air that gives the sponge its light, airy structure.
Volatile salts
Release gas as they heat, helping the batter rise and become lighter.
Hot water
Dissolves the volatile salts and adds moisture to the batter.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the batter hold its beaten air.
Fine flour
Sets during baking to form the cake's structure.

The step that matters

Beating the eggs and water. The air beaten into the eggs is the main source of lift in a sponge. Beat thoroughly before adding the flour, then fold gently so the air is not knocked out.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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