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Dessert

Sponge Cakes

A light cake made from sugar, flour, eggs, lemon zest, and potato flour, baked quickly in small molds or as a single cake.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Frances Crawford · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Sponge Cakes

Why it works: Potato and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,230 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Sponge Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Gather fourteen ounces of fine flour, a pound of sugar sifted through a lawn sieve or silk, and the rinds of two lemons grated.

  2. Heat a deep pan on a slow stove or before the fire until it is quite hot.

  3. Separate the whites from ten eggs.

  4. Put the yolks into a bowl with one pound of sugar and the rind of one lemon, and pound them together.

Make the batter

  1. Break in twelve eggs and whisk them until the eggs become quite white and thick.

  2. Add the sugar to the whisked eggs and whisk very well for five minutes.

  3. Let the mixture stand while the pans are buttering.

  4. Beat the eggs again for about five minutes.

  5. Add the flour and lemon peel to the mixture.

  6. Mix the batter with a spoon.

  7. Beat the mixture well.

  8. Add half a pound of potato flour.

  9. Beat the whites in a separate basin to the consistency to bear the weight of a shilling.

  10. Mix the whites with the other ingredients, beating all the time with a silver fork.

Bake and serve

  1. Have a buttered mould ready, dust sugar over it.

  2. Fill your pan or little moulds.

  3. Put the batter into the mould, taking care not to fill the pans more than half full.

  4. Put them on a baking sheet, sift a little sugar over them, and put them into the oven.

  5. Place the cakes into a gentle oven.

  6. Bake quickly; they will bake in a few minutes if in small moulds, or about an hour if baked as a cake.

  7. When the cake begins to brown and appears sufficiently done, take it out of the oven and turn it out of the mould.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

755Calories
24 gProtein
7 gFat
149 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Potato1 medium (173g) baked161
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Frances Crawford. 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Potato + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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
Whisked and whipped whites give the cake its airy, light structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the whisked eggs hold their foam.
Potato flour
Forms the light crumb structure once combined with the eggs.
Lemon rind
Adds aroma and bright flavour from the grated peel.

The step that matters

Beating the whites to the right stiffness. Whites beaten until they just hold their weight give the foam the air that makes the sponge rise. Overbeaten whites turn dry and grainy and deflate in the oven, while underbeaten whites stay runny and yield a dense cake.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, lemon, 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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