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 ↓
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.
Prepare
Sift the flour four times.
Separate the eggs and beat the yolks for 10 minutes.
Gradually add the sugar and beat for about 30 minutes.
Beat the egg whites until smooth.
Make the batter
Combine the yolks, whites, and sugar, and beat with a spoon for 5 minutes.
Add the lemon juice and rind, mixing thoroughly.
Dissolve the baking soda in the ice water, then add the cream of tartar and salt.
Gradually add the flour, stirring just until mixed.
Bake
Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 35 minutes before checking; bake longer if necessary.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,404 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg and flour 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
- Eggs
- Provide structure and moisture, and their whipped whites trap air that helps the cake rise.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps make the crumb tender and fine.
- Pastry flour
- Forms the cake's main structure once its proteins set in the oven.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the cream of tartar to produce gas that lifts the batter.
- Cream of tartar
- Adds acidity that activates the baking soda and helps stabilize the egg foam.
- Lemon juice and rind
- Add bright acidity and lemon aroma to the cake.
The step that matters
Stirring the flour just until mixed. Once flour is added, overmixing develops gluten and knocks air out of the egg foam, leaving a tough, dense cake instead of a light sponge.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, flour, cream):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, flour, cream. 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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