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Dessert

Sponge Cake

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Clarke, Mary Lamson. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 22 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Sponge Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sponge cake

  1. Combine 1½ quarts flour, 2 heaping teaspoons Star Crystal Baking Powder, yolks of 3 eggs, and 1 cup sugar.

  2. Beat mixture with ½ cup butter.

  3. Add whites of eggs, beat to stiff froth.

  4. Mix in 1½ cups milk.

  5. Bake in a hot oven.

Make the orange cakes

  1. For Orange Cake No.1: Combine 2 cups flour, ½ cup butter, whites of 5 eggs, 1 cup white sugar, ½ cup cold water, 2 heaping teaspoons Star Crystal Baking Powder, juice and rind of 1 orange; bake like jelly cake; frost each layer.

  2. For Orange Cake No.2: Combine 2 eggs, 1 cup sugar, 1 tbsp melted butter, ½ cup milk, 1½ cups flour, 2 teaspoons Star Crystal Baking Powder, 1 tbsp orange juice, 1 tsp grated rind; bake in square pan; split and fill with orange cream.

Make the orange cream

  1. Make orange cream: Put rind of ½ orange and juice of 1 orange, 1 tbsp lemon juice, and hot water into a cup; strain and boil; add 1 tbsp corn starch wet with cold water; cook 10 minutes; beat yolk of 1 egg with 2 heaping tbsp sugar; add to mixture with 1 tsp butter; cook until butter dissolved; fill cake with cream and frost with orange icing.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

907Calories
29 gProtein
26 gFat
139 gCarbs

Counts 7 of 8 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Orange1 medium (131g)62
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  4. Orange + corntop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together586 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Whites trapped by beating form a foam that gives the cake its light structure.
Flour
Provides the starch and gluten network that sets the cake's crumb structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps tenderise its crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps form a smooth batter.

The step that matters

Add whites of eggs, beat to stiff froth. Egg whites must be beaten until stiff so they trap air; under-beaten or greasy whites give a dense cake, and any yolk or fat left in the bowl prevents the foam from forming.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, milk, lemon, corn, egg. 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.

More sponge cake recipes

Lemon 108White 98Cream 70Pudding 58Plain 48Velvet 40 See all 880 →

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