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Dessert

Cheap Sponge Cake

A light, inexpensive sponge cake made with eggs, flour, sugar, baking powder, vinegar, and hot water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Cheap Sponge Cake

Why it works: Flour and sugar 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 ↓

Cheap Sponge Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg yolks until thick.

  2. Gradually add the sugar while continuing to beat.

  3. Add the hot water, then mix in the flour sifted with baking powder and salt.

  4. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites and vinegar.

Bake

  1. Bake for 35 minutes in a buttered and floured cake pan at 350°F (175°C).

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Flour + vinegartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,652 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Egg yolks
Add richness and fat, and help bind the batter together.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff foam, they give the cake its light, airy structure.
Flour
Forms the gluten and starch framework that sets the cake's structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps keep the crumb tender and moist.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise in the oven.
Vinegar
Its acidity helps stabilize the whipped egg white foam.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped egg whites trap air that lifts the cake. Stirring them in vigorously or too long deflates the foam, leading to a dense, flat sponge. Fold gently until just combined.

“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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