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Dessert

Sponge Cake with Lemon Filling

A light sponge cake layered with a thick lemon filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and flour 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 ↓

Sponge Cake with Lemon Filling

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the cake

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Beat the yolks and sugar until very light.

  3. Gradually add the lemon juice and boiling water.

  4. Sift the flour six times and mix the baking powder through it.

  5. Mix well and fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

  6. Bake in two layers for 30 minutes.

Make the filling and assemble

  1. For the filling, beat 2 eggs and add the lemon juice and sugar.

  2. Cook in a double boiler, stirring until thick.

  3. When cold, spread the filling between the layers.

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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
Whipped whites give the sponge its lift and airy, light structure.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the sponge once it sets in the oven.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the yolks whip to a light, stable foam.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright lemon flavour to both the cake and the filling.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise in the oven.

The step that matters

Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold the air that makes a sponge light. Folding gently keeps that air in; stirring or deflating the whites makes the cake dense and flat.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Figfits about as well

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