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Dessert

Fruit Sponge Cake

A sponge cake with fruit filling and pineapple icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Fruit Sponge Cake

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 batter

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

  2. In a bowl, beat the eggs until fluffy.

  3. Add baking powder, sugar, lemon extract, and vanilla extract; mix well.

  4. Gradually add flour and cold water, mixing until smooth.

  5. Divide the batter into two greased cake pans and bake until golden.

Make the filling and icing

  1. For the filling, combine minced orange, chopped pineapple, sliced banana, ¾ cup sugar, and lemon juice.

  2. For the icing, boil pineapple syrup with sugar in a 2:1 ratio until thick.

  3. Beat two eggs for each cup of sugar until stiff, then gradually pour the hot syrup over the eggs.

  4. Cook the mixture over steam until it reaches the right consistency to ice the cake.

Assemble

  1. Spread the filling between the layers and ice the top with the prepared icing.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Vanilla + bananatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Pineapple + bananatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together733 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  4. Vanilla + pineappletop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together911 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  5. Orange + pineappletop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,664 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whipped to create air, giving the sponge its light, airy structure.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the batter once baked.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the icing thicken into a stable syrup.
Pineapple
Adds moisture and fruity sweetness to the filling.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot syrup over the eggs. Pouring the syrup too quickly can scramble or deflate the beaten eggs. Adding it slowly while beating keeps the foam stable so the icing sets smooth and light.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, vanilla, flour, orange, pineapple, banana. 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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