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Dessert

White Sponge Cake

A light cake made from egg whites, flour, sugar, baking powder, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and sugar 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 ↓

White Sponge Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Separate the whites of five eggs.

  2. Sift one cup of flour and one cup of sugar into the whites.

  3. Add one teaspoonful of baking powder.

  4. Flavor with vanilla.

Bake

  1. Bake in a quick oven.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

582Calories
19 gProtein
6 gFat
108 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
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 F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. Flour + sugartop 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
Egg whites provide the structure and airy lift that give the sponge its light crumb.
Flour
Flour gives the cake its set structure once heat firms the egg and starch network.
Sugar
Sugar sweetens the cake and helps keep the whites stable and the crumb tender.
Baking powder
Baking powder releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake in a quick oven. A quick oven sets the batter's structure while the trapped air is still expanding. If the oven is too cool, the cake may rise slowly, spread, and turn dense before it sets.

“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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