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Dessert

Plain Sponge Cake

A light, airy cake made with egg, sugar, sweet milk, flour, butter, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Plain Sponge Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a mixing bowl, beat the egg and sugar until well combined.

  2. Add the sweet milk and melted butter, mixing thoroughly.

  3. In another bowl, combine the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt.

  4. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until smooth.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into greased pans the size of a breakfast plate.

  2. Bake for 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its starch sets during baking.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and stay tender.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so baking soda reacts and helps the cake rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to release gas that makes the cake rise.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until smooth.. Adding dry ingredients gradually and stirring only until smooth keeps the batter evenly mixed. Overmixing develops gluten, which can make the cake tough, while the leavening needs to react promptly once the batter is combined.

“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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