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Dessert

Water Sponge Cake

A light sponge cake made with eggs, powdered sugar, flour, water, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Water Sponge Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately quick oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Separate the egg whites and yolks.

  2. Beat the whites and yolks together.

Make the batter

  1. Sift in the powdered sugar gradually.

  2. Add the vanilla and flour.

  3. Beat in the water quickly.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 30 minutes in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

  2. Break the cake into pieces for serving.

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 + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Eggs
Whipped with air to give the cake its light, airy structure.
Flour
Provides the set structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps give it a fine, tender crumb.
Water
Adds moisture to the batter, helping the cake stay soft after baking.
Vanilla
Adds aroma and a mild sweet flavour.

The step that matters

Beat in the water quickly.. Mixing the water in quickly keeps the air trapped in the beaten eggs from collapsing. Slow or heavy mixing deflates the batter, which leads to a denser, flatter cake.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillathe original
  3. Lemonfits less well
  4. Figfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, 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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