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Dessert

Sponge Cake

A light cake made from flour, sugar, eggs, butter, milk, and lemon zest, baked in a moderate oven.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Jacqueline Harrison Smith (ed.) · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 25 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Sponge Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sponge cake

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs with the granulated sugar to a cream.

  2. Add the whites of the eggs, which must be beaten very stiff.

  3. Gradually add the flour.

  4. Add the rind and juice of the lemon.

  5. Bake in a moderate oven.

Make the dough

  1. Mix creamed butter with sugar.

  2. Add the yolks of the eggs and scalded soda.

  3. Stir in sifted flour with cream of tartar and salt.

  4. Wash the raisins, dry them, chop them coarsely, and flour them.

  5. Mix the raisins and spices with the dough.

  6. Fold in the beaten whites of the eggs.

  7. Put 1 teaspoon of dough in a pan.

  8. Make a sponge: beat together 1 cup scalded milk, 1 egg, 1 teaspoonful sugar, then add 1 saltspoonful of salt, ¼ cup yeast, and 2 cups flour, and beat it well.

  9. Mix the sponge in the morning and let it stand until night.

  10. Add the other ingredients at night and let the whole rise until the next morning.

Shape and fry

  1. When risen, cut the dough into diamond-shaped squares about 1 inch thick.

  2. Let the squares rise for 20 minutes.

  3. Fry the squares in boiling lard, into which a washed clean potato has been put to prevent the cakes from burning.

  4. Ensure the lard is boiling hot and deep enough to cover the doughnuts entirely.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

1088Calories
29 gProtein
45 gFat
144 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 13 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Lard1 tbsp (12.8g)115
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Cinnamon1 tsp ground (2.6g)6
Ginger1 tsp grated fresh (2g)2
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

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

By Jacqueline Harrison Smith (ed.). 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. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  4. Lemon + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  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
Whipped whites trap air for lift, while yolks add richness and structure.
Flour
Its proteins set during baking to give the cake its structure.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds tenderness and richness to the crumb.
Yeast
In the sponge, it ferments slowly to make the dough rise.
Soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to release gas and lighten it.
Cream of tartar
An acid that stabilizes beaten whites and works with soda to lighten the batter.

The step that matters

Folding in the stiffly beaten whites. Stiff whites hold air that gives the cake its lift. Folding gently, rather than stirring, keeps that air from collapsing, so the cake rises evenly instead of turning dense.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Clovethe original

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