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Dessert

Plain Sponge Cake

A light, airy cake made from eggs, sugar, flour, baking powder, salt, and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Plain Sponge Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs with the powdered sugar until well combined.

  2. Gradually stir in 1 cup of sifted flour.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites to stiff peaks.

  4. Fold the beaten egg whites into the yolk mixture.

  5. Sift together the remaining flour and baking powder, then fold into the batter.

  6. Slowly stir in the boiling water a little at a time.

  7. Add salt, and do not add more flour even if the mixture seems thin.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into shallow tins and bake.

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. 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
Whites trap air for lift and structure, while yolks add richness and tenderness.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and gives a fine, tender crumb.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the risen cake together.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise.
Boiling water
Adds moisture and steam that helps the cake expand and stay light.

The step that matters

Do not add more flour when the batter looks thin. The batter is meant to be thin because the whipped whites and boiling water provide lift and moisture. Extra flour absorbs liquid and develops gluten, making the cake dense and tough.

“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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