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Dessert

Sunshine Sponge Cake

A light sponge cake made with egg whites, yolks, sugar, flour, lemon extract, cream of tartar, and a pinch of salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Sunshine Sponge Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Add a pinch of salt and cream of tartar to the egg whites and beat until stiff.

  3. Gradually add the sugar and beat thoroughly.

  4. Add the lemon extract and the egg yolks, then carefully stir in the flour.

Bake and cool

  1. Pour the batter into a pan and bake for 35-40 minutes.

  2. When done, invert the pan and let it cool completely.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 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

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff foam, they trap air and give the cake its light, airy structure.
Egg yolks
Add richness and tenderness, and help bind the batter.
All-purpose flour
Provides the protein network that sets during baking and gives the cake its structure.
Fine granulated sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps stabilise the whipped egg white foam.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the egg whites, helping them whip to a more stable foam.

The step that matters

Folding in the flour. Stirring in the flour too vigorously knocks air out of the whipped egg whites and develops gluten, which makes the cake dense and tough. Stir gently so the foam keeps its volume.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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