Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
In a bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.
In another bowl, beat the egg yolks and mix in the cold water.
Sift the flour, cream of tartar, and baking powder together.
Gradually add the powdered sugar to the egg yolks, then fold in the flour mixture.
Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.
Add the lemon juice and grated rind, mixing carefully.
Bake
Pour the batter into shallow tins and bake for 20 minutes.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,404 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Flour and egg 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
- Whites whipped to stiff peaks trap air, giving the cake its light, airy structure.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that sets as the cake bakes and holds it together.
- Powdered sugar
- Sweetens the cake and contributes to its fine, tender crumb.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during baking so the cake rises.
- Cream of tartar
- Stabilises the whipped egg whites so they hold their peaks.
The step that matters
Folding in the beaten egg whites. Folding gently preserves the air whipped into the whites. Stirring or deflating them vigorously knocks out that air, so the cake rises less and turns out denser.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, egg, cream):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, egg, cream. 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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