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Dessert

Strawberry or Raspberry Sponge

A light sponge cake flavored with strawberries or raspberries, gelatin, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Strawberry or Raspberry Sponge

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Soak the gelatin in ½ cup of water for 2 hours.

  2. Mash the berries with ½ cup of sugar.

  3. Let the mixture stand for 30 minutes.

Make the syrup and gelatin

  1. Simmer 1 cup of water and the remaining ½ cup of sugar together for 20 minutes.

  2. Add the soaked gelatin to the hot mixture and stir until dissolved.

  3. Strain the mixture.

  4. Mash the berries through a fine sieve.

  5. Add the sieved berries and lemon juice to the gelatin mixture.

Set and serve

  1. Set the mixture in a pan of ice.

  2. Stir occasionally until it begins to thicken.

  3. Fold in the well-beaten egg whites gently.

  4. Pour the mixture into a mold that has been wet with cold water.

  5. Set the mold on ice.

  6. Serve with cream.

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 + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Berries
Provide the main flavour, colour and body of the sponge.
Gelatine
Sets the liquid mixture so it holds its shape when unmolded.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam to make the mixture light and airy.
Sugar
Sweetens the berries and balances the lemon's acidity.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the berry flavour.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites gently. Beaten egg whites hold air that gives the sponge its lightness. Stirring vigorously or letting the mixture get too firm before folding deflates the foam and makes the dessert dense.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. 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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