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Baking

Easy Sponge Cake

A light sponge cake made from eggs, sugar, flour, baking powder and boiling water, baked in a quick oven.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Ithaca (N.Y.) First Baptist Church. Ladies Union · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Easy Sponge Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat eggs and sugar thoroughly.

  2. Add water.

  3. Mix flour and baking powder before adding, then beat thoroughly.

Bake

  1. Bake in quick oven.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

582Calories
19 gProtein
6 gFat
108 gCarbs

Counts 3 of 4 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Waternot 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 Ithaca (N.Y.) First Baptist Church. Ladies Union. 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 + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 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
Trap air when beaten, giving the sponge its light structure and set crumb.
Flour
Provides the starch and gluten that form the cake's structure as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, making the cake rise and become airy.
Sugar
Beaten with eggs to hold air, and adds sweetness and a tender crumb.

The step that matters

Bake promptly after the final beating. Baking powder starts releasing gas as soon as it is wet, and the heat of the oven sets the batter. Delaying the bake or overbeating the flour mixture can lose air and toughen the crumb.

“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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