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Dessert

White Sponge Cake

A light, airy cake made from beaten egg whites, sugar, flour, and flavored with rose water or lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

White 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 egg whites to a stiff froth.

  2. Sift the powdered sugar two or three times, then add it very lightly to the egg whites.

  3. Sift the cream of tartar through the flour after sifting the flour alone four times.

  4. Carefully mix the flour and cream of tartar into the egg mixture as gently as possible.

  5. Add rose-water or lemon for flavoring.

Bake and cool

  1. Pour the batter into a bright cake pan without buttering it.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 45 minutes.

  3. Check for doneness with a straw.

  4. Let it cool gradually by leaving the oven door open.

  5. If the pan has a tube, turn it upside down; if not, set it upright on something.

  6. Once completely cool, remove the cake from the pan.

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. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Flour and egg 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 into a stiff foam that traps air and gives the cake its structure and lift.
Flour
Sets the structure of the cake once heated, holding the foam in place.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the cake and dissolves into the foam, adding fine texture.
Cream of tartar
Stabilizes the whipped egg whites, helping the foam hold its volume.

The step that matters

Folding in the flour and cream of tartar. Overmixing knocks air out of the whipped egg whites, so the cake bakes flat and dense. Mixing as gently as possible keeps the foam intact for a light sponge.

“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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