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Dessert

Cream Sponge Cake

A light cake made with cream, sugar, flour, eggs, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar 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 ↓

Cream Sponge Cake

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a mixing bowl, combine the cream and sugar until well blended.

  3. Add the eggs and mix until smooth.

  4. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until just combined.

  6. Add flavoring to taste and mix gently.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

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. Cream + sugartop 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. Cream + flourtop 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

Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it sets.
Eggs
Add structure and moisture, helping the batter set and bind.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that lifts the cake.
Cream of tartar
Provides acidity that activates the baking soda for rise and tenderness.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and keep moisture.
Cream
Adds fat and moisture, giving the crumb a tender texture.

The step that matters

Stirring the dry ingredients into the wet mixture. Once flour is hydrated, overmixing develops gluten, which makes the cake tough. Stirring only until just combined keeps the crumb tender, and the leavening gas is released best when the batter goes straight into the oven.

“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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