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Dessert

Old Philadelphia Sponge Cake

A light sponge cake made with sugar, eggs, lemon, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Old Philadelphia Sponge Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat together one pound granulated sugar and the yolks of ten eggs until as light as cream.

  2. Add the juice and grated yellow rind of one lemon.

  3. Beat the whites of the eggs to a stiff froth.

  4. Add the beaten egg whites alternately to the mixture with one-half pound sifted flour.

Bake

  1. Bake for twenty-five minutes.

  2. Bake in a single cake, or in patty pans.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

645Calories
20 gProtein
12 gFat
112 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

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. See the original page.

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 + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Flour and egg 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 whites trap air to make the sponge light and give it rise.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps stabilise the beaten yolks, keeping the batter light.
Flour
Sets during baking to give the sponge its structure.
Lemon
Adds bright acidity and fragrant aroma from the juice and rind.

The step that matters

Folding the egg whites into the batter. Whites hold air only while they are stiff. Adding them alternately with the flour and mixing gently keeps the air in, so the cake rises instead of turning dense.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour, egg, cream):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, egg, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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