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Dessert

Chocolate Sponge Cake

A chocolate sponge cake made with eggs, powdered sugar, grated chocolate, soda crackers, spices, lemon rind, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Chocolate 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 yolks of 10 eggs and 1 cup of powdered sugar until very light.

  2. Add ½ pound of grated sweet chocolate, 5 rolled soda crackers, 1 teaspoon baking powder, ½ teaspoon each of cinnamon, cloves, and allspice, the grated rind of ½ lemon, and ⅓ cup of brandy.

  3. Fold in the beaten whites of the 10 eggs.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

  2. Cover with Chocolate Frosting.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Allspice + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,083 recipes

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

  5. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whites trapped by folding give the cake its light, airy structure as it bakes.
Powdered sugar
Beaten with the yolks to build a light, pale base and add sweetness.
Sweet chocolate
Supplies the main flavor and richness, and adds body to the batter.
Soda crackers
Rolled fine, they add crumb and body to the batter in place of flour.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the cake rise.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten whites. Folding gently keeps the air in the beaten whites. Stirring or deflating them makes the sponge dense and reduces its rise.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, chocolate, cinnamon, clove, allspice, brandy):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, chocolate, cinnamon, clove, allspice, brandy. 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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