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Dessert

Butter Sponge Cakes

A light, buttery sponge cake made with butter, sugar, flour, eggs, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Clarke, Mary Lamson. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour 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 ↓

Butter Sponge Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat four eggs, one cup of butter, and one cup of sugar to a light cream.

  2. Sift one quart of flour and three heaping teaspoonfuls of Star Crystal Baking Powder into the mixture.

  3. Add milk enough to make the dough drop off the spoon.

  4. Put the batter in a well-buttered and papered pan and bake in a good hot oven.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

684Calories
19 gProtein
18 gFat
108 gCarbs
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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds richness and a tender crumb to the cake.
Sugar
Creamed with butter, it sweetens the cake and helps give it a light texture.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake once mixed with the liquid and eggs.
Eggs
Beaten into the creamed mixture, they add structure and help the cake rise.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, making the sponge rise and become light.

The step that matters

Adding the milk. Milk must be added only until the dough drops off the spoon. Too little leaves a stiff batter that bakes dense, while too much thins the batter so it cannot hold the air and structure built during creaming, producing a heavy, 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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