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Dessert

Cocoa-nut Sponge Cake

A light sponge cake flavored with coconut and lemon, made by folding beaten egg whites into a yolk mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Cocoa-nut Sponge Cake

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.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs with the sugar and flour.

  2. Add the salt, lemon essence, and grated nutmeg.

  3. Beat the egg whites to a froth and fold them into the yolk mixture.

  4. Stir in the grated cocoa-nut.

Bake and serve

  1. Line square tin pans with buttered paper.

  2. Pour the mixture into the pans, filling them about 1 inch deep.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 30 minutes.

  4. Cut into squares and serve with or without icing.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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 trapped by beating provide the airy lift, and yolks add richness and structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps hold moisture and a tender crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the sponge together as it bakes.
Grated cocoa-nut
Adds moisture, fat and coconut flavour to the crumb.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Whites hold air only when beaten to a froth and folded gently; stirring them in hard knocks out the air, so the sponge bakes up flat and dense instead of light.

Swap the cocoa

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Cocoathe original

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