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Dessert

Velvet Sponge Cake

A layered sponge cake made with eggs, sugar, flour, baking powder, boiling water, lemon extract, and a powdered sugar icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Women of the First Congregational Church (Marysville, Ohio) · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Velvet Sponge Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg yolks with two cups sugar for fifteen minutes.

  2. Add the three beaten egg whites to the mixture.

  3. Add one cup boiling hot water just before adding the flour.

  4. Stir in two and one half cups flour and one tablespoon baking powder.

  5. Flavor the batter with a teaspoon lemon extract.

Bake and ice

  1. Bake the batter in three layers.

  2. Prepare icing by beating three egg whites to a stiff froth, then adding six dessert spoons of pulverized sugar and lemon to flavor.

  3. Spread the icing between the baked layers.

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 Women of the First Congregational Church (Marysville, Ohio). 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
Beaten whites trap air, giving the sponge its light, airy structure.
Flour
Provides the starch and gluten framework that sets the cake's crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the beaten yolks become thick and pale.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the layers rise as they bake.
Boiling water
Adds moisture and steam, which helps the batter expand and keeps the crumb tender.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten egg whites. Stiff beaten whites are a foam that gives the sponge its lift. Stirring them in hard or overmixing collapses the air bubbles, 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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