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Dessert

Savoy Cake

Savoy Cake is a light, lemon-flavored sponge made with egg yolks, whites, sugar, flour, and lemon rind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Savoy 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

  1. Beat the egg yolks and sugar with a wooden spoon for 30 minutes.

  2. Whisk the egg whites until stiff and white.

  3. Gently fold the egg whites into the yolk and sugar mixture a little at a time.

  4. Add the dried flour and grated lemon rind, mixing until combined.

Prepare the moulds

  1. Grease the moulds with clarified butter using a small brush.

  2. Mix the fine sugar with the flour.

  3. Coat the greased moulds with this mixture.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into the prepared moulds.

  2. Bake in a very slow oven at 300°F (150°C).

  3. To check for doneness, insert a knife into the center; if it comes out clean, the cakes are done.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 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 yolks
Provide richness and tenderness through fat and emulsifying lecithin in the batter.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff foam, they give the cake its light, airy structure as they set.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps stabilise the beaten yolks and whites.
Flour
Forms the set crumb structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.

The step that matters

Folding the egg whites into the yolk mixture. Whipped whites hold air that gives the cake its lift. Folding gently, a little at a time, keeps that air from collapsing, so the cake rises and stays light.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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