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Dessert

Berwick Sponge Cake

A light sponge cake made with eggs, sugar, milk, flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, vanilla or lemon extract, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Berwick 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. Beat the egg yolks and whites separately until fluffy.

  3. Add the sugar and beat for 5 minutes.

  4. Mix in the milk.

  5. Sift the flour with the salt, cream of tartar, and baking soda three times, then add to the mixture.

  6. Fold in the vanilla or lemon extract.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a large shallow baking pan.

  2. Bake until golden and a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Vanilla + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 separately, they give the sponge its light, airy structure.
Sugar
Beaten with the eggs, it adds sweetness and helps stabilise the foam.
All-purpose flour
Its proteins set during baking to form the cake's main structure.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter, stabilising the egg foam and helping the cake stay tender.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to release gas that helps the cake rise.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites separately. Whites must be beaten until fluffy so they trap air. Under-beaten whites leave the sponge dense, while over-mixing after the flour is added knocks out that air and makes the cake tough.

“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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