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Dessert

Blackberry Sponge

A gelatin dessert made with blackberry juice, sugar, egg whites, and a gelatin base.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Gelatin and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,778 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Blackberry Sponge

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gelatin

  1. Soak the gelatin in 1 cup of cold water for 30 minutes.

  2. Pour 1 pint of boiling water over the soaked gelatin.

  3. Add ¾ cup of sugar and stir until dissolved.

  4. Add ½ pint of blackberry juice.

Set and whip

  1. Strain into a tin basin set in cracked ice.

  2. Stir occasionally until cold.

  3. Add the stiffly beaten egg whites and mix until smooth.

Mold and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a mold to harden.

  2. Turn out onto a dish.

  3. Serve with vanilla sauce poured around it.

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.

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. Gelatin + sugartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + blackberrytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Blackberry + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together472 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Gelatin + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Gelatin
Sets the liquid into a firm, wobbly structure as it cools.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam, they lighten the mixture and give the sponge its airy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the dessert and balances the tartness of the blackberry juice.
Blackberry juice
Provides the main flavor and color, along with some acidity.

The step that matters

Add the stiffly beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air only when whipped stiff and kept cool. Adding them to liquid that is still warm or not yet cold can deflate the foam, so the sponge loses its lightness. Chilling until partly set first helps the foam stay intact.

Swap the blackberry

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Blackberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against gelatin, sugar, 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.

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