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Dessert

Cream Sponge Cake

A light sponge cake flavored with lemon, made with eggs, sugar, flour, cornstarch, baking powder, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and flour 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 ↓

Cream 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, then gradually add the sugar and beat for 2 minutes.

  2. Add the water and mix well.

  3. Sift together the cornstarch, flour, baking powder, and salt, then add to the egg mixture.

  4. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites and lemon extract.

Bake and cool

  1. Pour the batter into a greased bread pan, filling it halfway.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 30 minutes, or until a clean straw comes out when inserted.

  3. Let the cake cool in the pan upside down, then remove it once cool.

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. Sugar + flourtop 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. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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
Whipped yolks and folded whites give the sponge its light, airy structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the beaten eggs hold a stable foam.
Cornstarch
Softens the crumb, giving a tender texture compared with flour alone.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the sponge once baked.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the batter rises and lightens.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites must be stiffly beaten and folded gently so the air bubbles stay trapped; overmixing deflates the batter and produces a dense, flat cake.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, flour. 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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