Skip to main content
Dessert

Sponge Cheesecakes

A cheesecake made by mixing crumbled stale sponge cake with butter, sugar, egg, milk, lemon juice, and baking powder, baked until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Sponge Cheesecakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Soak the crumbled spongecake in milk.

  2. Line patty pans with short pastry.

Make the batter

  1. Beat together sugar and butter for a few minutes.

  2. Add the beaten egg and mix well.

  3. Stir in the soaked spongecake and lemon juice or flavoring.

  4. Add baking powder and mix until combined.

  5. Fill the pans three-quarters full with the mixture.

  6. Sprinkle currants on top if desired.

Bake

  1. Bake in a brisk oven at 400°F (200°C) until nicely browned.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Milk + curranttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg binds the batter and helps set the structure as it bakes.
Butter
Fat creamed with sugar adds tenderness and richness to the crumb.
Sugar
Sugar creams with butter and contributes sweetness and browning.
Stale spongecake
Soaked crumb adds body and moisture to the batter.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking to lift the batter.

The step that matters

Filling the pans three-quarters full. Filling too full lets the batter overflow the pastry as it rises, while too little leaves the cakes small and dry. Leaving room lets the batter rise evenly in the oven.

Swap the currant

The recipe marks currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, butter, egg, lemon):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, butter, egg, lemon. 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.

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesRed Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipes