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Dessert

Butter Sponge Cake No. 8

A light butter sponge cake made with sugar, eggs, flour, butter, 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 ↓

Butter Sponge Cake No. 8

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. Beat sugar and eggs over low heat until light and foamy, ensuring it does not get hotter than blood warm.

  2. Remove the mixture from heat.

  3. Continue beating until cold.

  4. Add vanilla flavor.

  5. Mix in sifted flour.

  6. Add melted butter while hot. Mix well.

Prepare the pan

  1. Lightly grease the molds with butter or lard.

  2. Dust the molds with powdered sugar.

  3. Line the pan with paper.

  4. Dust the pan.

Bake

  1. Fill the pan with the batter.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until 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. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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 sugar to trap air, giving the sponge its light, airy structure.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure once set by heat, giving it body to hold its shape.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender crumb, adding fat that softens the texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps stabilize the foam when beaten with the eggs.

The step that matters

Beating the eggs and sugar over low heat. If the mixture gets too hot, the eggs begin to cook and thicken, which limits how much air the foam can hold. Keeping it only blood warm lets the eggs whip to full volume, producing a lighter sponge.

Swap the vanilla

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

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

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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