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Dessert

To Make Small Sponge Cakes

A light cake made from eggs, flour, powdered sugar, and flavoring, baked until pale and set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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To Make Small Sponge Cakes

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 ↓

To Make Small Sponge Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Weigh the flour to match the weight of five eggs and the sugar to match the weight of eight eggs.

  2. Ensure the flour is perfectly dry and the sugar is well pounded and sifted.

  3. Separate the egg whites from the yolks.

  4. Beat the yolks with the sugar.

  5. Whisk the egg whites until stiff.

  6. Gently fold the egg whites into the yolk mixture.

  7. Gradually sift in the flour and add the flavoring.

Bake and finish

  1. Butter the tins well.

  2. Pour the batter into the tins.

  3. Sift a little sugar over the cakes.

  4. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until pale and lightly set.

  5. Remove from the tins before they cool.

  6. Turn the cakes upside down until completely cool.

  7. Store in a closed tin canister or wide-mouthed glass bottle.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

Eggs
Whisked whites trap air for lift, and yolks add richness and structure to the batter.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake as the batter bakes.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps give the cakes a fine, tender crumb.

The step that matters

Folding the egg whites into the yolk mixture. Whipped whites hold air that gives the sponge its lift. Folding gently keeps that air in; stirring or deflating the foam leads to dense, flat cakes.

“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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