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Two old-fashioned sponge cake recipes from the Star Crystal Cook Book, with general cake-making hints.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Clarke, Mary Lamson. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Additional Recipes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the first batter

  1. Beat the six eggs, yolks and whites together with a spoon-whisk for twenty minutes, using a long, steady stroke.

  2. Sift in the sugar with the left hand, keeping up the beating with the right.

  3. Add the lemon juice and rind.

  4. Lastly fold in the flour, without beating any more.

Bake

  1. Bake in a rather deep tin about fifty minutes.

  2. Do not open the oven door for the first fifteen minutes.

  3. At the end of that time it should begin to rise; at the end of the next fifteen minutes it should double its bulk; by the end of the next twenty minutes it should be sufficiently browned and baked through.

Make the second batter

  1. Beat three eggs to a cream.

  2. Add one and one-half cups of sugar.

  3. Add one-half cup of cold water.

  4. Add two cups of flour in which two teaspoonfuls of Star Crystal Baking Powder have been sifted, one saltspoonful of salt and flavoring to suit the taste. Beat hard for two minutes.

  5. Bake thirty to forty minutes in a rather quick oven.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

896Calories
28 gProtein
32 gFat
124 gCarbs

Counts 8 of 9 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
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 Clarke, Mary Lamson. [from old catalog]. 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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 foam, they trap air that gives the cake its light structure.
Flour
Sets the cake's structure as it bakes, giving it body once the foam is set.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps stabilise the whipped egg foam.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, making the cake rise and become airy.

The step that matters

Fold in the flour without beating. Flour is folded in gently because overbeating develops gluten and deflates the air-filled egg foam, leaving a dense, flat cake.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, egg, flour, 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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Lemon 108White 98Cream 70Pudding 58Plain 48Velvet 40 See all 880 →

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