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Dessert

Strawberry Sponge-cake

A layered sponge cake with strawberries and sweetened egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Strawberry 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.

Make the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, mix the egg yolks, sugar, milk, butter, baking powder, and enough flour to create a soft batter. Add lemon flavor to the batter.

  3. Divide the batter into two shallow pans.

  4. Bake the batter until done.

Assemble and finish

  1. Spread strawberries on one cake layer.

  2. Top the layer with beaten egg whites sweetened with powdered sugar.

  3. Place the second cake layer on top.

  4. Add more strawberries on the second layer.

  5. Spread the remaining egg whites on top.

  6. Return to the oven to brown, if desired.

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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

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

Butter and flour 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 yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter while adding structure as it sets.
Egg whites
Beaten and sweetened, they form a light foam that adds lift and a glossy topping.
Flour
Forms the gluten and starch network that gives the cake its structure as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the cake rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a richer flavor in the crumb.
Strawberries
Add moisture and fruity sweetness between the layers.

The step that matters

Beating and topping the egg whites. Egg whites must be beaten to stiff, stable peaks with the powdered sugar. Underbeaten whites will weep or collapse, and overbaking them when browning can make them dry or rubbery.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, milk, butter, flour):

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

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