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Dessert

White Sponge Cake

A light, airy sponge cake flavored with rose extract, brandy, and citron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Goff, May Perrin, [from old catalog] ed · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

White Sponge Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dry ingredients

  1. Place a clean sieve over an earthen bowl and measure into the sieve one cup of powdered sugar, one-half cup of flour, one-half cup of corn starch, one teaspoonful of Royal baking powder. Run them through together.

Mix and bake

  1. Have ready the whites of eight eggs beaten to a stiff froth. Add one teaspoonful of rose extract and mix thoroughly.

  2. Bake in square tins about two inches deep in a quick oven.

Serve

  1. To serve, cut in small squares.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

684Calories
19 gProtein
18 gFat
108 gCarbs

Counts 4 of 6 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Rosenot in our table0
Brandynot in our table0

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

By Goff, May Perrin, [from old catalog] ed. 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Rose + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together560 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Whipped to a stiff froth, they trap air that lifts and gives the cake its light, open crumb.
Flour
Forms the main structure that holds the cake's shape as it bakes.
Corn starch
Softens the flour's gluten, giving a finer, more tender crumb.
Royal baking powder
Releases gas in the oven, helping the cake rise.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stiff whites hold the air that makes the cake rise. Mixing too vigorously knocks that air out, leaving a dense, flat cake.

“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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