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Dessert

Sponge-cake

A sponge cake made with eggs, sugar, flour, soda, lemon, and baked in a buttered mould.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Sponge-cake

6 persons

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil the sugar and water together until they form a thick syrup.

  2. Let the syrup cool a little.

Make the batter

  1. Pour the syrup into the eggs, which should be previously well whisked.

  2. Beat the eggs and syrup together for a few minutes.

  3. Grate the lemon rind.

  4. Mix the carbonate of soda with the flour.

  5. Stir the soda-flour mixture lightly into the other ingredients.

  6. Add the lemon juice.

  7. Mix until thoroughly combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a buttered mould.

  2. Bake in a quick oven for more than 1 hour.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

644Calories
21 gProtein
7 gFat
124 gCarbs

Counts 7 of 9 ingredients. The other 2 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
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0
Cakenot 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 Isabella Beeton. 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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Lemon + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Egg and flour 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 beaten to trap air, giving the cake its light structure.
Flour
Forms the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Carbonate of soda
Reacts with the batter to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Sugar (in the method)
Sweetens the cake and helps keep it moist and tender.

The step that matters

Stirring the soda-flour mixture lightly into the batter. Overmixing once the flour is added develops gluten, making the sponge tough and dense instead of light and tender.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, lemon, flour, pepper. 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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Lemon 108White 98Cream 70Pudding 58Plain 48Velvet 40 See all 880 →

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