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Dessert

White Sponge Cake

A light cake made from eggs, sugar, flour, baking powder, rose extract, butter, brandy, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Margaret Brown · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,341 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

White Sponge Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the white sponge cake

  1. Separate the whites of eight eggs.

  2. Whisk together one cupful of sugar, one half cupful of flour, one half cupful of cornstarch, one teaspoonful of baking powder, and one teaspoonful of extract of rose.

  3. Sift the flour, cornstarch, sugar, and baking powder together.

  4. Add the sifted mixture to the whipped egg whites and the extract of rose, and mix gently but thoroughly.

  5. Bake in a well-buttered cake mould in a quick oven for 30 minutes.

Make the muffin cakes and finish

  1. Slightly melt one cupful of butter in a cake bowl.

  2. Add one cupful of sugar and three eggs.

  3. Stir for a few minutes.

  4. Add one and one-half cupfuls of flour, one half teaspoonful of baking powder, one teaspoonful of extract of cinnamon, and one glass of brandy.

  5. Mix into a batter that will almost run.

  6. Bake in well-greased muffin pans in a moderate oven for 20 minutes.

  7. Pour a little transparent icing over each and add a few colored comfits.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

690Calories
20 gProtein
18 gFat
110 gCarbs

Counts 5 of 7 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Cinnamon1 tsp ground (2.6g)6
Rosenot in our table0
Brandynot 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 Margaret Brown. 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 + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cinnamon + brandytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,199 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 whites give the sponge its light, airy structure as they set in the oven.
Flour
Provides the starch and protein that set into the crumb and hold the cake's structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps keep the crumb tender and moist.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches the batter and softens the crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the batter rises and lightens.

The step that matters

Mixing the sifted dry ingredients into the egg whites. Folding gently and thoroughly keeps the air trapped in the whipped whites. Stirring hard knocks out that air, so the sponge bakes up dense instead of light.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Cinnamonthe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Allspicefits less well
  4. Clovefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, rose, butter, egg, brandy. 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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